President Donald Trump is seeking to change how the U.S. Census Bureau collects data, ordering the Commerce Department to exclude illegal immigrants from the U.S. Census.
Trump announced the plan via a post to Truth Social, writing that the Commerce Department would begin work on a “new and highly accurate CENSUS based on modern day facts and figures and, importantly, using the results and information gained from the Presidential Election of 2024.”
Trump wrote that those in the country illegally “WILL NOT BE COUNTED IN THE CENSUS.”
The proposed change continues a long-running effort by the president to reduce the impact of illegal immigrants on the balance of political power in the United States.
It’s unclear whether Trump is calling for a new census ahead of 2030, or if the proposed changes would apply only to future counts.
The U.S. Census is crucial to the distribution of political power in the United States—and Trump’s move is certain to face challenges in federal courts, as have past efforts at making such alterations to the census.
Here’s what to know.
The census, a count of the number of people in the United States conducted every ten calendar years at the turn of each decade, is a major component of the American political system mandated by the U.S. Constitution.
While every state receives two seats in the Senate regardless of its size, the number of seats a state receives in the U.S. House of Representatives—as well as the number of Electoral College votes it receives—is based on its population.
Every state gets at least one seat in the House, but populous states receive far more—as is the case for California, with 52 representatives, and Texas, with 38.
The number of votes a state gets in the Electoral College is determined by adding the number of seats a state has in the House to its two Senate seats.
It’s also responsible for determining how to distribute around $2.8 billion in federal funding for roads, healthcare, education, and other sectors.
According to Pew Research, Los Angeles and other California cities, New York, and Chicago are home to the largest illegal immigrant populations.
In the past, Trump has attempted to have illegal immigrants excluded from apportionment of House seats, Electoral College votes, and federal funding.
In 2019, he made a push to include questions about an individual’s citizenship status on the census, but was blocked by federal courts.
Trump’s announcement leaves it unclear whether his plans would apply to the upcoming 2030 Census or if he’s considering a new census ahead of schedule.
Recently, Republicans in Texas have moved to redraw their state’s congressional maps, though they’ve been stymied in the endeavor by the flight of around 56 Democrats from the state to avoid a vote.
The effort has been encouraged by Trump, who’s also sought similar changes in Republican states like Missouri and Louisiana.
A new census excluding illegal immigrants—who are highly represented in blue states like California and New York, as well as battleground states like Arizona—could see blue states lose representation and electoral power.
However, conducting an early census would be a difficult undertaking, and ordering such a move without congressional sign-off could expose the administration to legal challenges.
The decennial census represents the largest non-military undertaking by the federal government, requiring an army of employees to receive responses from as close to one hundred percent of American households as possible.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated that around 288,000 people were employed to follow up with non-responsive households for the 2020 Census.
That makes it an expensive endeavor.
In March 2023, the Government Accountability Office estimated that the 2020 Census cost taxpayers around $13.7 billion.
In addition, any move to change the census is likely to face scrutiny in the courts—and in the past, federal judges haven’t been friendly to Trump’s efforts to exclude illegal immigrants.
The 14th Amendment dictates that the census count “the whole number of persons in each state” for the apportionment of House seats.
In 2019, the Supreme Court blocked the first Trump administration from adding a citizenship question to the census.
Such a question was last on the census in 1950.
Critics of Trump’s plans say adding such questions will likely lead to under-reporting of household size by those in the country illegally.
Despite being blocked by the Supreme Court, Trump made another push to exclude illegal immigrants from apportionment decisions, but lost in the lower courts.
The Supreme Court didn’t weigh in on this second issue until after the 2020 election, throwing out the case on procedural grounds.
In an unsigned decision at the time, the Supreme Court wrote, “We express no view on the merits of the constitutional and related statutory claims presented. We hold only that they are not suitable for adjudication at this time.”
—Joseph Lord
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