Politico: Census to add controversial question on citizenship status

[Anna Komnene]

Virginia, Cabinet confirmations should not be about whether a hypothetical "second choice nominee" would be better or worse. They should instead be based on the merits of the actually nominated person. I don't care that Republicans had the votes to confirm this guy on their own, or that a second choice nominee wouldn't have been any better - It was clear from the start that Ross was a terrible choice for the job, and because of that, Democrats should have put up all 48 of their votes against him.

This is worse than the Ajit Pai thing. Only a few choice characters broke off for that. With this guy, almost half the Dem Caucus voted for him! I know you're obligated to spin this in the best way possible for your party, but Dems are complicit. It's just the way it is.

This is the Atlas forum, not CNN. Nobody is obligated to spin anything, and the regular families in Utah, New Mexico, or wherever that won't get enough funding for education or public safety are most certainly not complicit.

[Anna Komnene]

Maybe, consider it a difference of how I view representation. These people are here whether you like it or not, and they are vital cogs in the economy, whether you like it or not. Representatives should represent the people in their district, undocumented or not.

I am not trying to start a fight on this, but I'm legit curious: Is there evidence to suggest that having non-citizens as neighbors makes you more likely to vote in a way that represents the interests of non-citizens?  Has this been studied?  Because even if you are apportioning seats based on total population, it's only the actual citizens of voting age in those districts who are doing the voting.

What if, hypothetically, the evidence actually went the other way?: That living near non-citizens made people more racist, and therefore more likely to vote in representatives who advocated policies that non-citizens didn't like?  Would that change the calculus?

I'm not sure about voting patterns but there's definitely been a lot of work on the relationship between living in or near immigrant communities and having a positive attitude toward immigrants. The same generally holds true for undocumented immigrants. In contrast, places with few immigrants tend to have less positive views about them.