(Photo by Quinn Dombrowski.)

By Ralph De La Cruz
Florida Center for Investigative Reporting

The U.S. Census Bureau spoke this month, making its once-a-decade announcement about how congressional and Electoral College seats should be doled out.

And the winners were …

States such as Texas, Florida and Georgia.

Which many folks may find ironic, considering politicians within those conservative-tilted states have been critical of the Census Bureau for the practice of trying to count all people — including the undocumented — within their states.

It really gets interesting when you look at how those undocumented residents affected the Census and, therefore, apportionment.

The St. Petersburg Times did that and came out with a story titled “Study shows immigrants, legal and otherwise, helped state win seats in Congress.”

The Times reported that Florida would have one less Congressional seat if only U.S. citizens had been counted, as Senator-elect Marco Rubio first suggested.

That’s the dirty little secret of the tea party/Republican set: They talk a harsh hard-line while reaping the benefits of illegal immigration.

They helped kill the Dream Act, which would have provided a path to higher education and citizenship for youngsters who often arrived here through no fault of their own. In the meantime, many of the states that elected them profit from the labor and knowledge of the undocumented.

Join the Conversation

States such as Florida benefited from immigrants in the U.S. Census. Does that mean many Florida politicians were hypocritical? Join the discussion in the comments below.

States such as California, Washington, Utah, New Mexico, Kansas, Illinois, Wisconsin, Nebraska, New York and Texas — Rick Perry’s, John Cornyn’s and Tom DeLay’s Texas — have long acknowledged the value of its undocumented population by allowing all who graduate from state high schools to get in-state tuition rates.

You might notice a pattern in that list: most of those states are very familiar with immigration.

In fact, of the six states with the most immigration, only New Jersey and Florida don’t offer in-state tuition for all immigrants who graduated from its high schools.

Sounds like a resolution for a new year.