New 'Latino' and 'Middle Eastern or North African' checkboxes proposed for U.S. forms

New proposals by the Biden administration would change how the U.S. census and federal surveys ask Latinos about their race and ethnicity and add a checkbox for "Middle Eastern or North African" to those forms. (RussellCreative/Getty Images)

The Biden administration is proposing major changes to forms for the 2030 census and federal government surveys that would transform how Latinos and people of Middle Eastern or North African descent are counted in statistics across the United States.

A new checkbox for "Middle Eastern or North African" and a "Hispanic or Latino" box that appears under a reformatted question asking for a person's race or ethnicity are among the early recommendations announced in a Federal Register notice, which was made available Thursday for public inspection ahead of its official publication.