Washington, D.C. – Representative Michelle Fischbach (R-MN) and U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) sent a letter to the Director of the U.S. Census Bureau, Robert Santos, to urge the Bureau to work with the City of Marshall to resolve the reported undercount in the 2020 Census results. The City opened a case with the Bureau due to an undercounted student population at Southwest Minnesota State University. The Census Bureau informed the City in December 2023 that it had resolved its case, but the City has still not received an updated census figure or any additional details.
“An accurate and comprehensive census is fundamental to our democracy and the well-being of communities across the country,” wrote the lawmakers. “The City of Marshall is home to Southwest Minnesota State University, which enrolled 6,660 students in the fall of 2019, including 427 who lived on campus. Very few of these students were present on campus on April 1, 2020 due to a shift to remote learning necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, the population of the City of Marshall was undercounted during the 2020 Census.”
