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Pallone Calls for Hiring Of Legal Indian Immigrants For Census

Democratic Congressman Frank Pallone has urged top officials responsible for the US census to permit hiring of legal immigrants from India and other countries to assist in Census 2000.

In a letter to US Commerce Secretary William M Daley and Census Bureau Director Kenneth Parewitt, he called for the hiring of permanent residents not hailing from a list of so-called "allied nations". That list currently excludes India and other countries from which significant numbers of people have emigrated to the United States.

He said as Congressman to one of the largest Asian Indian populations in the country, this was of great concern to both him and the constituents he represented. He is from New Jersey.

"The census bureau's decision to change its hiring policy by waiving the citizenship requirement marked a positive step towards ensuring that non-citizens will be able to play a crucial role in providing outreach to immigrant communities, who may otherwise be overlooked in the Census 2000 count."

Pallone, however, said he was concerned that this policy was not being applied across the board and did, in fact, exclude citizens from certain countries although they were legal immigrants in the United States.

"Under the existing policy, all immigrants from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, as well as immigrants from Arab and African countries, are being unfairly discriminated against because their countries of origin are not on the list of so-called allied nations," he said.

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