Final day to comment on U.S. Census proposal to stop tracking race and ethnicity is Nov. 2
Native leaders say the rushed proposal happened without proper consultation and would reduce tribal enrollment
Monday is the final day for the public to issue comments on a proposal to remove questions about race and ethnicity from the U.S. census.
Tribal leaders are concerned that the proposal process is rushed and being done without proper tribal consultation. The matter was posted to the Federal Register on Sept. 10. In October, the National Congress of American Indians convened more than 500 tribal leaders over Zoom to meet with U.S. Census officials. During the meeting, tribal leaders stated their concerns and offered to extend the discussion into 2027.
Tribes said census numbers are vital to determining how much federal money they receive for housing, education and health care services. Census officials argue that the rule change would still count tribal enrollment, proposing that the federal government would use internal data from tribal nations to get the most accurate count.
On Oct. 29, NCAI executive director Larry Wright Jr. sent a letter to census officials outlining the reasons tribes reject the rule change. He said that data collection from other agencies would increase inaccurate counts of Native people in the census and drastically alter Congressional appropriations to tribes.
“Such changes undermine longstanding federal obligations arising from the United States’ trust responsibility to Tribal Nations,” Wright wrote.
Comments can be submitted at Regulations.gov under docket number USBC-2026-0628.
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