7 FAM 500 Appendix B
U.S. Census Bureau
(CT:CON-906; 04-22-2021)
(Office of Origin: CA/OCS)
7 FAM 510 APPENDIX B Introduction
(CT:CON-879; 07-18-2019)
a. The Bureau of Consular Affairs (CA) is charged with exercising the Secretary of State’s responsibility to provide consular protection and services to United States citizens abroad.
b. While for workload and crisis planning purposes CA compiles internally very rough estimates of U.S. citizens within a country, we do not count them. Moreover, we have neither the expertise nor the resources to conduct, what by any measure, could be represented as an accurate count of U.S. citizens in a given country.
c. Advocates of an overseas census believe that better demographic data on U.S. citizens abroad would be useful for a variety of policy making and business purposes and would make their unique interests more visible to Congress.
d. In 2004, the GAO concluded that "to the extent that better data on overseas Americans might be useful for various policy-making and other nonapportionment purposes that do not need as much precision, such information does not need to be collected as part of the decennial census" (GAO-04-1077T 010 Counting Americans Overseas as Part of the Census Would Not Be Feasible).
e. The rights and obligations of U.S. citizens and nationals overseas under various federal programs vary from activity to activity. For example, U.S. citizens residing overseas are taxed on their worldwide income, are required to register for Selective Service, can vote in federal elections, and can receive Social Security benefits, but they are generally not entitled to Medicare benefits, or, if they reside outside of the United States for more than 30 days, Supplemental Security Income.
7 FAM 520 APPENDIX B AUTHORITIES
(CT:CON-879; 07-18-2019)
a. The Constitution (2 U.S. Const. Art I, 2, cl. 3; and federal statutes (13 U.S.C. 141(a)) give the U.S. Census Bureau discretion over whether to count U.S. citizens abroad.
b. The authority for the Department of State to enroll (formerly known as register) citizens is derived from:
(1) 22 U.S.C. 2715 Procedures Regarding Major Disasters and Incidents Abroad Affecting United States Citizens, which provides:
|
22 U.S.C. 2715 (a) Authority: In the case of a major disaster or incident abroad which affects the health and safety of citizens of the United States residing or traveling abroad, the Secretary of State shall provide prompt and thorough notification of all appropriate information concerning such disaster or incident and its effect on United States citizens to the next-of-kin of such individuals. |
(2) 22 U.S.C. 4802 Responsibility of Secretary of State, Subsection (b) Overseas Evacuations, which provides:
|
22 U.S.C. 4802 “(b) Overseas Evacuations “The Secretary of State shall develop and implement policies and programs to provide for the safe and efficient evacuation of United States Government personnel, dependents, and private United States citizens when their lives are endangered. Such policies shall include measures to identify high risk areas where evacuation may be necessary and, where appropriate, providing staff to United States Government missions abroad to assist in those evacuations. In carrying out these responsibilities, the Secretary shall— “(2) develop a mechanism whereby United States citizens can voluntarily request to be placed on a list in order to be contacted in the event of an evacuation, or which, in the event of an evacuation, can maintain information on the location of United States citizens in high risk areas submitted by their relatives; and “(4) develop a plan for coordinating communications between embassy staff, Department of State personnel, and families of United States citizens abroad regarding the whereabouts of those citizens.” |
(3) 22 CFR 50.3 which provides:
|
22 CFR 50.3 “(a) A person abroad who claims U.S. nationality, or a representative on his behalf, may apply at a consular post for registration … to make his residence in the particular consular area a matter of record.” |
7 fam 530 APPENDIX B u.s. DEPARTMENT OF State Liaison with U.S. Census Bureau
(CT:CON-906; 04-22-2021)
a. CA/OCS/MSU serves as the Bureau of Consular Affairs liaison to the U.S. Census Bureau in the U.S. Department of Commerce. Questions about overseas census should be directed to (FedBen@state.gov).
b. Requests from the U.S. Census Bureau to the Department of State for access to data in CA databases should be directed to the respective Deputy Assistant Secretary in CA/OCS, CA/PPT and CA/VO. The CA Directorates will, as appropriate, coordinate requests with CA/CST, and the Office of the Legal Adviser.
|
NOTE: · With few exceptions, the Census Bureau has historically counted only “federally affiliated” individuals, a group consisting of members of the military, federal civilian employees, and their dependents. · Following the 2000 Census, in response to congressional direction and the concerns of various private organizations, the U.S. Census Bureau launched a 2004 test enumeration to assess the practicality of counting both private and federally affiliated U.S. citizens abroad. The key part of this effort, the data collection phase, took place between February and July 2004 in three countries: France, Kuwait, and Mexico. · The initial results of the overseas census test suggest that counting U.S. citizens and nationals abroad on a global basis would require enormous resources and still not yield data that are comparable in quality to the stateside count. · The Census Bureau encountered a variety of implementation problems at each of the test sites. Although such difficulties are to be expected given the magnitude of the Census Bureau’s task, they underscore the fact that there would be no economy of scale in ramping up to a full enumeration of U.S. citizens and nationals abroad. · Because of the inevitability of country-specific problems, rather than conducting a single overseas count based on a standard set of rules and procedures (as is the case with the stateside census), the Census Bureau learned that each country posed unique requirements. · For example, in the 2004 test, addressing French privacy laws that restrict the collection of personal data such as race and ethnic information took a considerable amount of negotiation between the two countries. |
7 fam 540 APPENDIX B through 7 fam 590 APPENDIX B uNASSIGNED