A new report from the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) highlights several shortcomings in United States Census Bureau outreach to immigrants, including misinformation and bad translation of documents.

With poor government outreach, even a one percent under-count means more than 3 million people missing, which typically translates into more people shortchanged in terms of political representation and federal aid.

The Commerce Department, which oversees Census efforts, has also refused to ask the Department of Homeland Security to hold-off on raids during the 2010 census. Promoting a climate of fear does not help count everyone and immigrant communities have reason to be suspcious.

Past census data has been used to conduct raids and intern certain immigrants. Census data played a huge role when the United States government rounded up more than 120,000 Japanese-Americans into internment camps during World War II. Given that historical fact and a climate of increasing hatred towards immigrants, it would be huge disrespect to disregard immigrant fear of official statistics.

Tangible fears concerning the census do exist and merit more than just arrogant official dismal. Now within weeks of launching, the Census Bureau must do a better job of outreach to immigrant communities while the Department of Commerce must apply pressure on DHS to suspend large-scale raids if they indeed, want to get the most accurate count of everyone in the United States of America.