Republican efforts to exclude people in the US illegally from the numbers used to divide congressional seats between states have begun again. Four Republican attorneys general have already sued for a change to the once-a-decade headcount count ahead of the start of President Donald Trump’s second term Monday.
Trump joined the fray immediately after returning to office, signing an executive order on Monday that rescinded a Biden administration order and signaled the possibility of a push by his novel administration to change the 2030 census. Those efforts could be boosted by the Republican-controlled Congress, where Republican U.S. Rep. Chuck Edwards of North Carolina reintroduced legislation earlier this month that would add a citizenship question to the census form.
During his first term, Trump signed an executive order that would have excluded people who are in the U.S. illegally from being included in the 2020 census numbers, which are used to allocate congressional seats and Electoral College votes to each state. The GOP president also ordered the collection of citizenship data through administrative records in a second order. A Republican redistricting expert had written that it could be beneficial to Republicans and non-Hispanic whites to utilize the voting age population of citizens rather than the total population for purposes of redistricting congressional and legislative districts.
Trump released the memos after the U.S. Supreme Court blocked his earlier attempt to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census questionnaire. The Supreme Court said the government’s justification for the question was “manifestly contrived”.
Both Trump orders were repealed when President Joe Biden arrived at the White House in January 2021, before the 2020 census numbers were released by the US Census Bureau, the country’s largest statistics agency.
“I think it’s an open question how much energy the administration and Congress will try to bend the statistical system to their will,” historian Margo Anderson said of Trump’s second term. “Not because they don’t want to, but because there are other parts of the national government that they are more interested in.”
The Fourteenth Amendment states that “the whole number of persons in each State” should be counted for apportionment, the process of apportioning congressional seats and Electoral College votes among states based on population. The numbers also guide the distribution of $2.8 trillion in federal dollars to states for roads, health care and other programs.
The lawsuit, filed Friday by the Republican attorneys general of Kansas, Louisiana, Ohio and West Virginia, seeks to exclude people in the country illegally or temporarily from the numbers used to allocate congressional seats. It alleges that Ohio and West Virginia each unfairly lost a congressional seat and an electoral vote after the 2020 census due to the inclusion of people in the U.S. illegally, and that each of the four states is expected to lose a congressional seat and an electoral vote after the 2030 census would if that doesn’t change.
Projections released last month by Election Data Services do not show these four states losing seats after the 2030 census. According to the forecasts, California, New York and Illinois – states with Democratic majorities – are likely to lose the most seats and votes.
The Census Bureau did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment Tuesday.
Opponents of the citizenship question in the 2020 census said it discourages immigrants and residents who are in the country illegally from participating, leading to inexact numbers. A Census Bureau simulation released in 2023 found that the count, which took place in the final year of the first Trump administration and at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, missed a significant number of non-citizens.
Demographers and researchers expect the second Trump administration to amend or reverse the Biden administration’s recent actions regarding U.S. Census Bureaus. This includes combining race and ethnicity questions that were previously asked separately on forms into a single question and adding a category for the Middle East and North Africa.
Many experts also expect planned questions about sexual orientation and gender identity to come under scrutiny in the most comprehensive survey of American life. Some fear Trump will politicize the Census Bureau with a vast number of political appointees with little experience, as was the case in his first term. The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 policy guide for a Republican presidential administration advocated placing “committed political appointees and like-minded career staff” in office positions so they could “execute a conservative agenda.”
“They could easily use the same idiots they used last time for political purposes,” said Andrew Beveridge, a sociology professor at Queens College and the CUNY Graduate School and University Center and a census expert. “I expect he will do what he tried to do before.”
___
Follow Mike Schneider on social platform X: @MikeSchneiderAP.
