President Trump said Thursday that he is ordering his administration to begin work on a\u00a0new census\u00a0that excludes undocumented immigrants from the national tally of people living in the United States.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople who are in our Country illegally WILL NOT BE COUNTED IN THE CENSUS,\u201d he wrote in a\u00a0post\u00a0on Truth Social.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s unclear from his post whether Trump intends to have the change in place for the next official census, which won\u2019t be conducted until 2030, or a different count completed sooner.<\/p>\n
Leaving undocumented immigrants out of the census would run directly against language in the Constitution that orders the government to count \u201cthe whole number of persons in each State.\u201d The Constitution also gives Congress, not the president, control of the census.<\/p>\n
During his first term, Trump attempted to have a question added to the census that asked respondents about their citizenship status. After a long legal battle, the Supreme Court ultimately\u00a0blocked\u00a0the move. Researchers have found that a citizenship question would likely\u00a0lead to an inaccurate\u00a0record of the U.S. population, with Latinos especially being undercounted.<\/p>\n
The Supreme Court has not formally ruled on whether undocumented immigrants can be left out of the census entirely. The justices were given an\u00a0opportunity\u00a0to weigh in on that question in the final months of Trump\u2019s first term, but chose not to.<\/p>\n
Census data is crucially important. It is by far the most accurate and comprehensive way we have to know how many people live in the U.S., what their backgrounds are and what their lives look like.<\/p>\n
It also plays a\u00a0big role\u00a0in who controls Congress. Census numbers are used to decide how many members each state gets in the House of Representatives. Every 10 years, certain states gain extra seats in Congress while others lose them after the census provides an updated view of population flows across the country. The census affects presidential elections as well, because each state\u2019s Electoral College votes are based on the size of its congressional delegation.<\/p>\n
The census also helps Congress decide where trillions of dollars in federal spending go every year. The distribution of federal funding for education, transportation, law enforcement, public health and much more is all informed by the population figures that the census provides.<\/p>\n
There are an estimated 11 million people living in the U.S. illegally, according to the\u00a0Department of Homeland Security. Leaving them out of the census would lower the total U.S. population by about 3%.<\/p>\n
The impact would be especially pronounced in the states that have the most undocumented residents. California has by far the largest undocumented population, 2.6 million people as of 2022, according to DHS data. Next is Texas with 2 million, followed by Florida (590,000), New Jersey (490,000) and Illinois (420,000).<\/p>\n