AOC: Claims Racism Over Citizenship Question on Census

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. on Wednesday defended the Democrats' decision to subpoena documents related to President Trump's proposed census question, claiming a question on citizenship had a history of "racism."

Ocasio-Cortez attacked Commerce Sec. Wilbur Ross and the Trump administration for wanting a citizenship question to be re-added to the short-form census questionnaire.

While it has been nearly 60 years since the question was asked on the decennial census, the question has been asked before by the government in what were the long form census questionnaires, that were sent to 1 in 6 houses starting in the 70s, and the American Community Survey, a questionairre sent to millions of homes randomly each year. All these being conducted by the Census Bureau.

Despite all the previous appearances of the question and the Census Bureau announcement they were sending pilot census questionnaires to various houses with the citizenship question, Cortez claims it needs to be vetted before being considered. 

Cortez made accusations of racism and voter suppression by naming people who are either are no longer or have never been a part of the administration, saying that their “fingerprints” are all over the census.

During the hearing Ocasio-Cortez made accusations of both corruption and racism all in one breath, “I want to know about corruption, I want to know about the racism & the very disturbing history that we're seeing here.”  Watch her full remarks below.