Photo: Mark Wilson / Getty Images
By: EFE
Wednesday, November 6
Robert Santos: The Senate confirmed the first Latino who will lead the US Census.
WASHINGTON – The Senate confirmed this Thursday to Robert Santos as the new director of the United States Census Bureau and thus became the first Latino to hold that position since this federal agency was created in 1902.
“The confirmation of Santos will ensure that the agency has the leadership it needs at a crucial time to repair confidence in the census, a cornerstone of our democracy, ”he said Wade Henderson , Acting President of the Conference on Civil and Human Rights.
Arturo Vargas, president of the Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO), highlighted that the appointment of Santos, of 66 year-old received bipartisan support in the Senate.
“With its more than 40 years of experience and expertise with statistics and data and research in the social sciences, have prepared (Sangos) to lead the leading provider of quality data of the country about the population and the economy ”, pointed out Vargas.
When you actually care about counting everyone in the Census, actually helps to put someone in charge who wants to count everyone too. Congrats to Robert Santos, the first person of color, to lead the organization. Representation matters. https://t.co/FH6BXqzxb0
– Stephanie Valencia (@stephanievalenc) November 4, 2021
During the hearing prior to his confirmation, Santos said that while he understands that the position at the head of the Census Bureau is a political designation, he is not a politician.
“I am a scientist, an executive level manager, a researcher and have supported the Census Bureau for a long time,” said Santos, a native of San Antonio (Texas) and raised in a family Mexican-American.
Santos “is the first Hispanic, and indeed the first person of color, to assume permanent leadership in the history of the agency, ”Chuck Schumer, the head of the Democratic majority in the Senate, said in a statement.
“He is exactly the type of person our country needs to supervise our census: an impartial professional, highly experienced and unrelated to politics, ”added Schumer.
The Population and Housing Census is carried out in the US by constitutional mandate every 10 years and its results depend on the distribution of the representation of districts and states in the Federal Congress and the Electoral College.
In addition, l he Census results guide the distribution of billions of dollars in federal education, housing, infrastructure, and social benefits programs.
The Covid pandemic – 19 and the politicization of questions and the composition of data during the term of the former president Donald Trump made it difficult both to register and to disseminate the figures after the census of 2020.