Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Thursday formally launched a campaign to promote participation in New York for the U.S. Census later this year. 

At issue is the concern New York's immigrant population will be hesitant to participate in the once-a-decade headcount amid a federal government crack down on illegally living in the United States. 

Immigrant populations are typically hard to count in the Census under previous conditions. 

"This is not a political activity and this is not a political convening, but let me say this: this census comes at a particular time in this nation's history and it is a difficult time, it is an ugly time, it is a divisive time," Cuomo said in New York City earlier in the day. "You have the social fabric of this country being tested and stretched in a way I have never seen it before. You have anger, you have a lack of tolerance. We have a fear among our new Americans, we have division even in this state."

New York could lose at least one congressional seat because the state's population did not grow as fast as the rest of the country, but has been bolstered by an influx of new immigrants. 

The governor previously announced Lin-Manuel Miranda and Lucy Liu, along with Martin Luther King III will co-chair a New York Census effort and that he was backing $10 million in added funding.