Quote:MALONEY: “So, first of all, I’d say point of the undercount is that we’re facing the twin pandemic of Coronavirus and I would say systemic racism or police brutality.

So these are two monumental issues that government is responding to. And in terms of the Coronavirus, New York City has stated that at the epicenter of the number of deaths, the number of people infected, we have really been the center not only of the treatment, but we are now the center of the research that’s taking place for cures and for the vaccine, which we are working for to be free.

ut there’s been a lot of challenges. People have been afraid for their lives. We’ve lost 20,000 of our friends and neighbors in New York City alone, and many, many more have been sick and recovered. So we’ve got our — we had that tremendous challenge.

On top of that was the mistrust of the system question.

Every professional at the Census Bureau and everywhere else said that this question [citizenship question] would discourage people from participating.

We took this, the committee brought a lawsuit, many others, we took it all the way to the Supreme Court and we won and we had it removed. So it’s no longer there, it should no longer be a deterrent to anyone. The Constitution says everyone should be counted.

Even if you’re visiting our country from a foreign country, then you should be counted as who was in the country when we do this Census count. So it’s very, very important.

But we also have to get the message out that the Census is completely and totally confidential so that no one’s information will be allowed for any other purpose but a number that shows the research that we need for different age groups, different health issues and everything else.

You can fill out the Census form in about five minutes or less by either calling the number that we gave you or going online to My2020Census.com and fill it out. And it’s so important, not just for yourself and your family but for all your neighbors.

As we said, if your children are not counted, then the money is not there for the school formulas to help us with the funding for the education of children, the funding of senior centers and the food programs that we have.

And all of our funding, all of our federal funding is based on Census numbers and it has to be filled out.”