Aurora Mayor Richard Irvin said Friday he is “thoroughly disgusted and ultimately dismayed with the U.S. Census Bureau” and its population estimates through the past three years.
“The gravity of this situation” cannot be overstated, he said. “I am calling on the U.S. Census Bureau to be a more responsible and professional partner in this process.”
Irvin’s comments came in the wake of estimates released recently by the Census Bureau that say that Aurora lost about 3,000 people between 2020 and 2023.
The numbers are part of estimates the bureau does from time to time in the 10 years between decennial official counts. The bureau said Aurora’s population went from about 180,000 in 2020 to about 177,000 in 2023.
The numbers also show Illinois lost more than 263,000 residents, or about 2.1% of its population, during that three-year period.
The count is on top of what Aurora officials believe was an erroneous count by the Census Bureau in 2020, when it said the city lost about 17,000 people, going from about 197,000 in 2010 to about 180,000 in 2020.
Irvin and Aurora officials have said that was a dramatic undercount, brought about because many residents went uncounted in the city’s largely Hispanic wards. The city has been working toward getting a recount, and eventually a special census.
In his statement, Irvin said the estimates released recently were “just as flawed and erroneous as the reported 2020 census counts.”
“We know that Aurora didn’t experience a loss of 17,000 residents in 2020 and reject the notion that we lost an estimated 3,000 more over the past three years,” the mayor said. “This is why we are pursuing a special census recount, although the process to do so has been arduous at best.”
Irvin added that the bureau is showing an “apparent lack of concern and expediency” in correcting what he sees as the errors in the 2020 figures.
Irvin believes that undercount has already cost the city millions of dollars in state and federal money that is distributed based on population.
“The U.S. Census Bureau must be held accountable,” Irvin said. “It should cease issuing estimates until it first rectifies the results of the 2020 census by working in collaboration with impacted cities, like Aurora, Illinois, to do so.”
slord@tribpub.com