SC to send ID, license holders’ info, including citizenship status, to Census Bureau
The South Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles will transfer personal information of every South Carolinian with an ID or drivers license to the U.S. Census Bureau.
The move is part of the Trump administration’s push to identify the citizenship status of every adult in the country, NPR originally reported Tuesday.
Under the agreement between the DMV and the Census Bureau, South Carolina will share the citizenship status of its card holders among other information by August 1, according to DMV spokesperson Lauren Phillips. Officials will also provide information on type of card issued by the DMV, name of card holder, address, date of birth, sex, race and date the card was issued.
The file transfer will include information about ID and license holders from 2018 through March 2020.
South Carolina entered into the agreement with the Census Bureau after S.C. Gov. Henry McMaster spoke with U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, according to governor’s office spokesman Brian Symmes. He added that the pair spoke on numerous occasions about how South Carolina “could help with the administration’s Census efforts.”
“The governor’s office then asked DMV to work with the Census Bureau to determine what they were able to legally provide in a safe and secure way,” Symmes said.
The Census has been the latest target for President Donald Trump, an ally of McMaster, when it comes to his immigration policy. The Trump administration initially pushed to have a question about citizenship included on theCensus itself, but the effort was blocked by the Supreme Court in late June 2019.
In July 2019, Trump ordered governmental agencies to share data concerning citizenship status with the Census Bureau. The executive order included a section directing the Department of Commerce to “strengthen its efforts, consistent with law, to obtain state administrative records concerning citizenship.”
South Carolina isn’t the only state participating in this initiative. NPR reported that Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota have also agreed to transfer data to the Census Bureau. Other states like New Hampshire and Pennsylvania have refused to hand over the information.
This story was originally published July 17, 2020 at 3:53 PM with the headline "SC to send ID, license holders’ info, including citizenship status, to Census Bureau."
