Detroit sues Census Bureau, accuses feds of undercounting minorities

Detroit — The city of Detroit filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday against the U.S. Census Bureau and Commerce Department, accusing officials of undercounting residents, particularly Black and Hispanic citizens.

The lawsuit is the latest attempt to challenge Census results that are used to draw congressional districts, determine how many state and federal representatives a given community has and how to allocate funding to different states and localities.

City officials argue Detroit has gained population and that federal officials have refused to correct a racially-biased undercount.

"The bureau’s failure to consider evidence of its inaccurate 2021 estimate costs the city and its residents millions of dollars of funding to which they are entitled while threatening the city’s historic turnaround by advancing the false narrative that Detroit is losing population," the lawsuit reads.

City officials want to force the Census Bureau to accept and evaluate challenges to the 2021 population estimates. They also want a federal judge to declare that the refusal to correct a racially-biased undercount “negatively and disproportionately affects the count of the City and results in actual discrimination against Detroit’s Black and Hispanic residents.”

“The Census Bureau used a formula to estimate Detroit’s population that showed the city losing more than 7,000 residents from just one year prior,” said Mayor Mike Duggan Tuesday during a press conference at Detroit Police Headquarters. “Any formula claiming the city is still losing population defies facts and common sense, given the thousands of newly constructed and renovated housing units in the city, as well as increases in residential utility connections. Activity like this does not happen when more people are leaving the city than moving in.” 

Two years ago, Duggan and U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Detroit, announced that they would be challenging the census, arguing federal officials did not make a good-faith effort to accurately count the number of people during the pandemic and would gather evidence to prove whether that was true. And, at the time, the pair said they know by the number of DTE Energy utility bills that there are more residents than the estimated 640,000 living in the state's largest city.

At the city level, census data shows people are moving out of cities like Detroit, which shrank from 639,614 to 632,464, a decrease of more than 7,000 people from Census Day on April 1, 2020, to July 1, 2021.

Duggan said city funding is based on annual estimates, not just the decade-long census. 

"The Census Bureau admitted that in the 2020 count, they undercounted the African American population in this country by 3% and the Hispanic population by 5%. Just on his admission, we know they should have corrected 20,000 positive in the 2021 estimate," Duggan said. "We were shocked when the Census Bureau said Detroit lost 7,100 people."

In the one-year period, 14 new apartment units with 1,000 units opened, Duggan said. He added that the city can challenge the numbers by asking the Bureau to divulge their formula; however, this year, Duggan said they would not.

"We have absolutely no idea what formula they could have possibly used, but the objective evidence we do have is that in that same year, DTE Energy says 7,544 more households in the city added gas and electric service," Duggan said. "The Detroit Water and Sewerage Department said we added 6,964 housing units and the United States Post Office says the city added 4,475 more residents delivering mail in that year."

The Census Bureau could not immediately be reached Tuesday for comment.

Duggan, who worked as a census taker in 1980 in Ann Arbor, said the bureau did not have enough workers distributed in the city and they are still working to challenge the 2020 data. 

Conrad Mallett Jr., Detroit's Corporation Counsel and former deputy mayor, said the Census Bureau is in direct violation by failing to comply with its own rule that allows challenges to annual estimates and effectively adopting an “unofficial” rule without public input suspending the challenge program until 2023.

“The Census Bureau’s failure to follow its own program rules, and the conclusive evidence that Detroit’s population rose from 2020 and 2021, provide clear justification for a court to order the Bureau to fix the 2021 undercount so Detroiters can get their fair share of federal funds,” Mallett said.

U.S. Rep. Brenda Lawrence, D-Southfield, said undercounts have alarming consequences, depriving cities like Detroit of funding for schools, hospitals and affordable housing.

"If the census is not accurate, then the annual population numbers that guide hundreds of billions of dollars in federal aid to communities and families are not accurate either,” said Lawrence, vice chair of the House Appropriations Committee. "I successfully advanced language related to the Census Bureau’s funding bill for the upcoming fiscal year that directs the bureau to expand the scope of the Population Estimates Challenge Program so that cities across the country have a real chance to improve the accuracy of their annual numbers."

rsnell@detroitnews.com, @RobertSnellNews

srahal@detroitnews.com, Twitter: @SarahRahal_