Open Letter to Rep Tom Garrett, re 2020 Census

Tom, I mostly know you from your Twitter wars in which I'm an occasional participant and avid spectator. I hope that occasions will arise in which you will address and engage with a room full of district residents. I don't feel the urgency that some do, and wish such occasions be constructive, not confrontational.

That said, this is my first occasion to reach out to you by the House email. The enforcement of immigration law is my issue. You might recall early in your Twitter career making a quip about sanctuary cities, to which I responded with a request to Charlottesville Mayor Mike Signer to consider making it a sanctuary city. My position on such places is that their absence gives sanctuary to law enforcement from Due Process and other proper restraints. Sanctuary cities affirm our Constitution, while it is circumvented outside of them.

The activities of ICE agents has been newsworthy this past few weeks. Some say the pace of apprehensions has been consistent with recent trends. Others say the manner and target of apprehensions is categorically more hostile and arbitrary than before. You would know better than I the truth of the matter. I hope you are receptive to the truth of things despite what I regard as an extreme partisan lens.

I am moved to write by an article in Salon (we have such different preferences in news sources) by Matthew Rosza, dated this morning, Feb 16, 2017. The article suggests that ICE is specifically targeting places of refuge such as shelters from domestic abuse and cold temperatures. I shudder to think how sexual traffickers are cheering this development.

My own perspective comes from brief experience as a Census enumerator in the years leading up to the 2000 Census. I was often called to assure residents from whom, at the time, my one concern was collecting address information, that information was entirely confidential and unavailable to law enforcement, tax authorities or other possible sources of jeopardy.

The nature of my request is simple. The 2020 Census must maintain firewalls against any government object other than obtaining accurate aggregate information with which allocation of Congressman and other government resources are guided. The confidentiality of individual Census information must be inviolate. I expect from you an email or postal response specific to the 2020 Census.

BTW, when my car needed a jump start during my Census work, the one who stopped was a migrant apple picker. I did not ask his right to be here. I expect his employer followed applicable laws. But that incident, about 18 years ago, has ever since colored my appreciation of the Parable of the Good Samaritan. He was my neighbor.