Pelosi Remarks at Press Conference on the 2020 Census and the Historical Undercount of Communities of Color

Washington, D.C. – Speaker Nancy Pelosi joined Members of the Congressional Tri-Caucus and other Members of Congress for a press conference on the 2020 Census andthe impact of the historical undercount of communities of color in the decennial Census. Below are the Speaker's remarks:

Speaker Pelosi. Thank you. Thank you for allowing me to fill in here at this point because of what we have going the rest of the day.

But I'm honored to be with all the people who are here. They've been champions on who we are as Americans. In addition, Carolyn Maloney, who I'm sure will probably be joining you, has been for ten years talking about the Census working with Mr. Kilmer in the Appropriations Committee.

Finally, with all of these advocates for it. And, I would also add Grace Meng, who has a very diverse district, has had many of us up there to talk to our constituents to say, ‘Be counted. Don't give a victory to the other side by falling prey to their fear campaign about what they put out.'

The Republicans have put out – the Administration has put out something that says, ‘This is an official document, do not tear up, fill it out.' It's not the Census form.

But I am particularly annoyed today at the actions of Facebook. Facebook has something that is an official document of Donald Trump as saying, ‘Fill this out, this is a Census form' – it is not. It is an absolute lie, a lie that is consistent with the misrepresentation policy of Facebook. But now they are messing with who we are as Americans.

I know the profit motive is their business model. But it should not come at the cost of counting who is in our country, so that we can provide the services and the rest.

The beautiful diversity of America is what this Administration fears. They want us undercounted and misrepresented on Facebook, and Facebook is saying that misrepresentation is consistent with their policy – of misrepresentation.

So, I just call it to your attention because this is new and fresh, and it's causing quite a stir because, as the distinguished Chairwoman just said, we're excited about the online Census and the fact that it's in multiple languages and the rest.

But right now, this is, on the part of Facebook, a robust, unacceptable interreference in the Census, and the company won't take it down. We've accepted that and it clearly violates the Census, but didn't necessarily violate their own truthful policies.

So, with that, I yield to the distinguished Leader, the Democratic Leader of the House, Mr. Steny Hoyer. A champion on this issue for many years.