LOS ANGELES (AP) — In a squat office building not far from downtown, Esperanza Guevara is getting ready to look for people who might not want to be found. And her job could get a lot harder.

The immigrant-rights activist is leading a drive to reach tens of thousands of people who entered the United States illegally and persuade them to participate in the 2020 census, the government’s once-a-decade count of the population.

The Trump administration’s plan to use the census to inquire about each person’s citizenship has sent a chill through immigrant communities. Guevara and others fear the question could discourage participation and, by some estimates, leave millions of people uncounted across the country.

Such concerns are concentrated in Democratic-led states with large immigrant populations. An inaccurate count could have real-world consequences, since billions in federal dollars and seats in Congress are allocated according to population.

In immigrant communities often wary of government, a question about citizenship status will make people “less likely to fill out the census form or even answer the door when someone comes knocking,” said Guevara, who works for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles.

Those concerns have been heightened by Trump’s slashing rhetoric toward immigrants and by fears that census information could be used to find and deport people.

“Their first thought is, ‘Is this information going to be used against me?'” Guevara said, standing near rows of computers that will be staffed by volunteers trying to connect with prospective census participants.

Census Bureau chief Ron Jarmin said the agency is legally barred from sharing its information with law enforcement agencies, adding: “We are committed to ensuring that the data we collect are always protected.”

The U.S. Supreme Court is weighing a legal challenge seeking to strike the citizenship question from the census form. During oral arguments last week, the court’s conservative majority appeared ready to allow the question.

The Trump administration has argued that it has wide discretion in designing the questionnaire and that the citizenship question is clearly constitutional because it has been asked before — most recently, 1950 — and continues to be used on smaller, annual population surveys.

The Public Policy Institute of California has said that failure to accurately tally immigrants and other hard-to-reach groups could lead to an undercount of 1.6 million people, or roughly 4 percent of the state’s population. That would be enough to cost California one of its 53 House seats.

So California and other states are spending millions to persuade residents, legal and not, to fill out census forms, employing such means as public service messages, mailings, visits to people’s homes and informational gatherings.

“States are doing this because of the number of threats to a fair and accurate count,” said Vanita Gupta, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

This morning, through Executive Order, I launched an initiative to make every Kansan count. I established the Kansas Complete Count Committee (CCC) to ensure that every Kansan is represented in the 2020 Census. pic.twitter.com/ktdm7ZZAGd

— Governor Laura Kelly (@GovLauraKelly) April 23, 2019

Colorado’s House recently endorsed spending $12 million to encourage participation in the census. The governors of Kansas and Nevada have moved to create committees devoted to making sure everyone takes part.

In New Mexico, where the state has launched a multimillion-dollar effort to ensure an accurate tally, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has warned that a 1% undercount could translate into more than $700 million in lost federal revenue over a decade.

Perhaps no state has more at risk than California, where no racial or ethnic group constitutes a majority and Hispanics outnumber whites. More than a quarter of its residents are foreign-born.

Nearly 3 in 4 Californians belong to groups the census has historically undercounted, including Hispanics, blacks, renters, immigrants, children and members of multiple families that share a single home. The state also has an above-average poverty rate, and the poor — especially the homeless — are difficult to count.

With online surveys being widely used next year, people with shaky access to the internet also could disappear from the count.

The state has budgeted about $100 million for education and media campaigns to reach people, a figure likely to jump to $150 million later this year. Most of the money is going to hire field workers and to advertise the importance of participating, a message that will be printed even on lottery tickets.

The Trump administration’s “citizenship question has one purpose: to undercount our diverse communities,” Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom said. “Our state won’t be intimidated by the White House’s actions, and we aren’t going to back down from fighting for a fair count.”

The Census Bureau’s own plans call for hiring 450,000 to 475,000 temporary workers. Most of them will knock on the doors of people who do not fill out the questionnaires. That number is lower than it was 10 years ago because the bureau is counting on technological changes to make the job more efficient.

With a $400,000 contract from the state, Asian Americans Advancing Justice in Los Angeles is working to reach into immigrant communities where more than a dozen languages are spoken, including Korean, Vietnamese and Chinese. Southern California is home to the largest Asian population in the U.S.

An Le, the group’s statewide census manager, said census research has found that Asians who speak little or no English and were born outside the U.S. are fearful of repercussions from the government if they submit the information. The group is stressing the importance of the census to health and education funding.

Le said more money is needed to produce census materials in a greater range of languages. She worries, too, about the citizenship question.

Even for legal permanent residents, that would serve as “a deterrent and a barrier,” she said.

OLATHE, Kan. (AP) — A man who pleaded guilty to vandalizing an Olathe cemetery on Christmas was sentenced to 50 hours of community service and ordered to undergo a mental health evaluation.

42-year-old Alex Deason was also ordered Friday to pay $7,781 in restitution for damages. Deason pleaded guilty in March to criminal desecration at the Olathe Memorial Cemetery.

Authorities said Deason knocked over and vandalized headstones, some of which dated back to the 1800s.

At his sentencing hearing, Deason apologized and said he would like to write a letter to each family whose gravestones he damaged.

Deason has been ordered to have no contact with the Olathe Memorial Cemetery.

By JOHN HANNA

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Republican legislators have pushed a tax relief proposal through the Kansas Legislature, ignoring predictions from Gov. Laura Kelly’s fellow Democrats that she will veto it, just as she did with a larger plan.

The House voted 83-41late Saturday night to approve a billdesigned to offer relief to individuals and businesses that have been paying more in state income taxes because of changes in federal tax laws at the end of 2017. The House’s vote came two days after the Senate approved it, so the measure is headed to Kelly’s desk. Republican leaders in the GOP-controlled Legislature appeared to have the two-thirds majorities necessary in both chambers to override a veto, something they couldn’t say with the first tax bill.

“Kansas should not take more of their money based on something the federal government did,” said House Speaker Ron Ryckman Jr., a conservative Kansas City-area Republican. “It’s the people’s money.”

The bill would save taxpayers roughly $90 million during the budget year beginning in July and about $240 million over three years. It’s less than half the size of a GOP tax relief plan that Kelly vetoed in late March, partly because it doesn’t attempt to make its changes apply retroactively.

Kelly issued a statement early Sunday calling for a comprehensive review of the state’s tax system. Her staff would say only that she will review the measure.

Kelly likewise refused to say beforehand that she would vetothe first tax bill. But she criticized that measure as a return to a tax-cutting experiment under former Republican Gov. Sam Brownback that made Kansas nationally notorious because of persistent budget woes that followed.

Bipartisan legislative majorities repealed mostof the Brownback tax cuts in 2017, and Kelly ran successfullylast year against Brownback’s political legacy. Democrats argued that enacting the GOP’s smaller tax relief bill also would lead to budget problems within a few years, and Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, a Topeka Democrat, said it was “destined for a veto.”

“We can’t afford it,” said Sen. Tom Holland, a Democrat from northeast Kansas. “We need to buy ourselves some time and just see what’s going on with our economy right now.”

Republican leaders have argued that failing to act represents a tax increase.

“It’s very important to us that we make sure that businesses and individuals keep that money in their pockets, rather than having it go to the state of Kansas for bigger, bloated government,” said Senate President Susan Wagle, a conservative Wichita Republican.

Like other states, Kansas faced revising its income tax code because it is tied to the federal tax code. The federal tax changeschampioned by President Donald Trump lowered rates but also included provisions that raised money for Kansas, in part by discouraging individual filers from claiming itemized deductions.

The measure would allow individuals to itemize on their state tax returns even if they do not itemize on their federal returns. The bill also cuts taxes for corporations, particularly large firms with operations outside the U.S.

The measure also includes provisions aimed at helping the state collect more taxes from internet sales and start dropping the state’s 6.5% sales tax on groceries.

Kelly had promised during her campaign last year to lower the sales tax on groceries. Democrats scoffed at the incremental amount — less than 1 percentage point, or $1 on a $100 grocery bill, in 2021.

“I can hear the conversations at home: ‘Honey, the Kansas Legislature has given us a tax break. What are you going to spend your quarter on this week?'” said Rep. Boog Highberger, a Lawrence Democrat.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — A survey behind a proposal to provide women in Missouri prisons free access to sanitary products says about 80% of respondents made their own tampons out of materials available to them.

Nonprofit Missouri Appleseed’s survey found that a greater percentage of staff at the state’s two female correctional facilities were aware of the practice, which can lead to infections and health issues. The top reason cited for not purchasing tampons or sanitary napkins offered in the prisons was the high cost.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that the survey has become a significant driver in a bill that’s been awaiting a final vote on the House floor for several weeks. The legislation is also included in a separate bill pending in a Senate committee and in a criminal justice reform package that’s awaiting a House vote.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s effort to expand Medicaid in Kansas this year died Saturday when enough moderate Republicans bowed to the wishes of the GOP-controlled Legislature’s conservative leaders and ended an impasse that had tied up the state budget.

The House voted 79-45in favor of an $18.4 billion spending blueprint for state government for the budget year beginning in July. Democrats and moderate Republicans held the budget hostageFriday and much of Saturday, hoping to force the Senate to vote on an expansion planpassed by the House and favored by Kelly. Republican leaders did not budge on putting off actionuntil next year and kept meeting with GOP moderates throughout the day to bring them back to the fold.

It helped them that the budget was a good one for Kelly, fellow Democrats and the GOP moderate, providing extra money for higher education and pay raises for state employees, though her administration had problems with how it allocated extra dollars for prisons.

Expansion supporters initially were willing to risk those gains to fulfill Kelly’s goal of expanding Medicaid health coverage to an additional 150,000 Kansas residents now. Some became more nervous as the day wore on, though, particularly with the Senate’s top Republicans determined to wait until next year.

Top GOP senators strongly opposed the House’s expansion bill. Rep. Don Hineman, a moderate Republican from western Kansas in the center of ongoing talks with GOP leaders, said he was reassured by public promises from Senate leaders that a bill would be drafted later this year and considered early next year, though Kelly’s office urged them to keep blocking the budget.

“Their message was, ‘Hold tough. We think we can get this,'” Hineman said. “Enough of us disagreed with that or became uncomfortable enough that the votes were there to adopt the budget.”

Kelly’s election last year raised hopes that Kansas would join 36 other states that have expanded Medicaid or seen voters pass ballot initiatives. But like North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper and Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, two other Democrats, a GOP-controlled legislature can thwart expansion plans.

“For many of our neighbors struggling with illness or disability, time is something they do not have,” Kelly said in a statement after the House’s budget vote. “Due to the failure tonight, thousands of Kansans will go without health care for another year.”

Republicans leaders argue that the expansion plan Kelly backed would be more expensive for the state than her administration projected — $34 million in net costs for the state in its first full year. They also contend that lawmakers need more time to get the details right, control health care costs, and consider work requirements for people covered by the expansion.

GOP leaders also said their focus during the impasse was in getting a budget passed, so that state government could operate past June and lawmakers could wrap up their business for the year. The spending blueprint contained more spending — a 6.5 percent over the current budget year — than many conservatives wanted, GOP leaders said.

“Our ultimate goal was to make sure that we funded core government and that our schools were funded,” said House Speaker Ron Ryckman Jr., a conservative Kansas City-area Republican.

The budget bill went next to the Senate, where the expected favorable vote would send the measure to Kelly. The House budget vote also cleared the way for it to vote on a GOP tax billdesigned to provide relief to individuals and businesses paying more in state income taxes because of changes in federal tax laws at the end of 2017.

Democrats did not hide their bitter disappointment.

“We all stayed and a bunch of you strayed,” said Rep. Tim Hodge, a Wichita-area Democrat. “I can’t believe we can’t stay solid for a few hours.”

During the budget vote, Democrats briefly played rocker Tom Petty’s song, “I Won’t Back Down” as GOP leaders held the roll open for more than 90 minutes to get the last necessary yes votes — and then nearly all Republicans jumped aboard.

“They had everything going for themselves,” said Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, a Topeka Democrat. “They had all the momentum and they just can’t put up with the pressure.”

___

KANSAS CITY (AP) — Minority employees at Harley-Davidson’s plant in Kansas City have been subjected to years of harassment and discrimination — including having swastikas and nooses posted in the plant, frequent racial epithets and at least one assault, several employees said at a news conference organized by the NAACP-Kansas City on Friday.

“All the time I worked there it’s been there, it’s just ridiculous,” said Emmanuel Matthews Sr., who worked at the plant for more than two years. “This is 2019. This stuff has to stop. Something needs to be done.”

Matthews and other employees who spoke at the news conference work for Syncreon.US Inc., an affiliate of Syncreon, which supplies contract workers to the Harley-Davidson plant, but they said the harassment was directed at all minority employees. Matthews said he was assaulted by another worker at the plant but declined to discuss the details.

Harley-Davidson said in a statement that it does not tolerate any form of harassment or discrimination and actively enforces its code of conduct and anti-harassment policy along with well-established processes for employees to report concerns.

“Complaints that we were aware of were thoroughly investigated and action was taken based on the findings,” the statement reads. “As appropriate we also referred incidents and complaints to third-party employers who share our factory.”

Oswald Reid, president and CEO of Syncreon.US said in a statement Friday that the company doesn’t tolerate any of the alleged actions. He said the company provides many avenues to report harassment or discrimination, including a confidential “ethics line.” No complaints of racially discriminatory behavior have been reported to that line in the last two years, Reid said.

“Over the last three years, all alleged policy or Code of Conduct violations that we are aware of have been swiftly and effectively addressed,” Reid said. “As of this moment, there are no open investigations with regards to discriminatory behavior.”

Harley-Davidson plans to close the Kansas City plant this year and shift those operations to York, Pennsylvania. The Milwaukee-based company said the closing would eliminate 800 jobs in Kansas City.

Employees said the harassment has happened for years but has intensified as the plant’s closing approaches. They said they have seen graffiti telling black employees to die or to go back to Africa. The workers said when swastikas or racial epithets were reported, the images were sometimes left for days before being covered with spackle. They alleged management would say the incidents were being investigated but nothing ever happened and the perpetrators were rarely punished.

Rochelle Anthony, who was a union representative for the Steelworkers at the plant for nearly three years before she was fired, said she ran into constant roadblocks when she tried to file grievances and could never get a straight answer or feedback when she asked about her complaints.

“I tried,” she said. “I felt like I was fighting by myself. I couldn’t help them. It’s getting worse. We need help.”

Steve Nelson, general manager at the Kansas City plant, sent a letter to Harley-Davidson employees Thursday saying the company wanted to reassure them that the company is taking “all necessary steps” to enforce its policies. He said harassment of any kind “cannot and will not be tolerated at Harley-Davidson.” The letter included details of the company’s policies for reporting and investigating complaints.

The Rev. Rodney Williams, president of NAACP-Kansas City, said the national NAACP plans to ask Harley Davidson to launch an investigation at all of its plants to determine if discrimination is part of the company’s culture or is isolated to Kansas City.

“Whether it is closing or not, this is not acceptable,” Williams said in an interview. “We need to send a message that this not acceptable anywhere. Many employees came to us to complain so we felt it was our duty to give them a platform that they might be heard.”

MANHATTAN, Kan. (AP) — The Manhattan-Ogden School Board has approved guidelines for transgender students in the school district.

The board voted 6-1 Wednesday to approve the guidelines, after discussing the issue since December.

The guidelines give students the right to be addressed by the name and pronoun they choose. It also allows students to use the restroom that corresponds to their gender identity, and it allows students to play for sports teams of their gender identity.

The board heard comments from 21 people expressing both support and opposition.

Some opponents cited religious reasons and others criticized allowing students to play for teams of their gender identity.

Board members who supported the policy said they wanted to do what they thought was best for the students.

 

TROY, Mo. (AP) — A Missouri man has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for shaking his 3-month-old son so hard that he died.

A Lincoln County jury on Thursday found 29-year-old Steven Kyle Schnell guilty of felony child abuse,

The infant, Sawyer Schnell, was injured in October 2015 at the family’s home in the Moscow Mills area.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports Schnell told authorities he shook his son and patted his back because the child was choking.

But the jury found Schnell knowingly caused the injury that led to his son’s death.

By CORINNE BOYER, Kansas News Service

Long-running frustration about Amtrak’s willingness to keep a rail passenger line running through remote parts of the country has politicians threatening to block new directors to the agency.

A handful of U.S. senators demanded specifics by this week about how Amtrak plans to spend an added $50 million to keep the Southwest Chief line running from Chicago, through Kansas, to Los Angeles.

Hoping to force Amtrak to make long-term promises of keeping the Southwest Chief line, U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran of Kansas had already used the power each senator holds to put a legislative block on the appointment of three nominees waiting to join the passenger rail agency’s board of directors.

Amtrak still has not specified when it will answer the pending questions from the Senate. A spokeswoman from Moran’s office said Amtrak has made contact, but not with answers about how it plans to alter long-distance routes or how the rail service calculates what states must chip in to support service.

“(Moran) will maintain those holds (on the nominations until he gets) assurances from Amtrak that it will continue to fund the Southwest Chief and funds that rail service,” said Moran spokeswoman Morgan Said.

Moran and other senators have criticized Amtrak for proposals to replace train services with buses along some parts of the route.

Amtrak officials did not respond to requests for comment for this story.

In February, Congress gave $50 million for upkeep of the route to Amtrak to keep the line working through September. Last year, Amtrak proposed replacing service from Dodge City to Albuquerque with buses, but the federal budget prohibits the use of buses to replace long-distance train service along the route.

In early April, a group of 11 senators sent Amtrak a letter demanding more detail about its plans for the Southwest Chief and how, more broadly, it decides which long-distance routes are worth operating.

The Senate letter also addressed Amtrak’s claims that ridership is down. The most recent data provided by Amtrak says more than 52,000 passengers boarded the Southwest Chief line in Kansas in 2017, up 5.7 percent from 2016.

With 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. departures, Newton, the busiest station in the state, saw nearly 16,000 passengers in 2017. Erin McDaniel, communications director for the City of Newton, says the town supports the Southwest Chief and partners with other cities to fund it.

“We know many of our residents use it to get to Chicago as well as the Southwest,” McDaniel said.

Keeping the Southwest Chief running is important to Newton because preliminary efforts looking at establishing train service to connect Newton to the Heartland Flyer route, which runs from Oklahoma City to Fort Worth, Texas, are underway.

“There used to be a train route that went there years ago,” McDaniel said, “but if the Southwest Chief goes away, dreams of extending the Heartland Flyer would go away with it.”

Over the last year, Amtrak has removed ticket agents from many stations. But Assistant City Manager for Dodge City Melissa Mccoy said the city employs staff at its train depot.

“We have few options in terms of public transportation,” McCoy said. She said ridership jumps with tourists in the summer.

Without the Southwest Chief route, McCoy says some Dodge City residents wouldn’t be able to travel long distances.

“We have a lot of working class folks, and they have limited income,” she said. “Amtrak provides them a way to visit family and go on vacation and without that they might not have it all.”

An earlier version of this story incorrectly attributed the reason a hold was placed on Amtrak directors’ appointments. U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran took that action to secure a pledge to keep the Southwest Chief line running.

Corinne Boyer is a reporter based in Garden City for the Kansas News Service. Follow her @Corinne_Boyer.

LADUE, Mo. (AP) — A suburban St. Louis police officer indicted for shooting a shoplifting suspect has resigned from her department.

Ladue Police Officer Julia Crews submitted a letter of resignation on Friday, two days after St. Louis County prosecutor Wesley Bell announced that Crews was indicted on a charge of second-degree assault.

Her attorney has said Crews meant to use her stun gun but mistakenly grabbed her service revolver.

The shooting happened April 23 outside a grocery store in Ladue, one of Missouri’s wealthiest communities. The 37-year-old officer is white. The woman who was shot, identified by relatives as 33-year-old Ashley Hall, is black.

Hall remains hospitalized with serious injuries, though police have said she is expected to survive.

Defense attorney Travis Noble says Crews was “devastated” by the shooting.