José E. Serrano

both you and other officials in the Trump administration have spoken of the need for strong enforcement of our trade laws.

How finding out if a person is a citizen is going to protect the Voting Rights Act is beyond me.

This is really--opens the door for people to just say they are not like us, they are different.

If you are living in Puerto Rico, and you are therefore for a citizen, you won't be counted in the population of the United States.

I cannot support this administration's budget request for NOAA, as it represents a clear abdication of the agency's core mission.

it took such a long time for things to get going. And some of the excuses they were giving was that Puerto Rico was an island.

I don't think the census should be used to create more division, more fear, more hiding from people who should come forward and be counted.

That's the climate we are living in, you know.

It offends me personally because it sets me apart.

numerous Members of Congress, including myself, have expressed serious concerns about the impact of the citizenship question.

I appreciate all that you are doing to make this census a better census than any other before.

I hope we don't because, you know, more and more we are finding countries throughout the world that disagree with us.

But we are worried, very worried on this side about the census asking questions that will undermine the count rather than build the count up to where it should be.

I hope so because more than ever now we need the National Weather Service to be able to function as modern as possible, if there is such a phrase.

Why are we asking these questions? What is it that we hope to gain unless we are going to use it for something good?

That makes it look to anyone like being born in one of these places makes you a citizen different than being born in the United States.

I was very disappointed to see yesterday that the Republican party campaign to reelect the President put out an appalling email specifically noting that the President wants a new citizenship question added to the census.

We want to see that--there is still a large percentage or a significant percentage of people without lights.

Among the many NOAA programs the administration wants to eliminate are the National Sea Grant Program and the Educational Partnership Program with Minority Serving Institutions.

So if at the minimum I want to tie my sentiments to the Chairman in saying that we need to see that money go out.

the Constitution is pretty clear to me, even though I am not a lawyer, it says count the people within the states, not the citizens.

I don't believe in the boycott because we worked too hard to get people to believe in the census.

Including such a question would drive response rates down in minority and immigrant communities, increasing costs and harming accuracy.

The addition of a citizenship question to the decennial census without justification or testing is deeply troubling.

Why not include the territories in the total count? In other words, what is the population of the United States?