Census has historically counted all residents regardless of citizenship status, as required by the 14th amendment
Donald Trump announced on Thursday that he has ordered the commerce department to conduct a new census that would exclude undocumented immigrants from the official count.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump said the census would be “based on modern day facts and figures” and use “results and information gained from the Presidential Election of 2024”. He added that “people who are in our country illegally will not be counted”.
The US census has historically counted all residents regardless of citizenship or immigration status, as required by the 14th amendment’s “whole number of persons” provision. Trump’s directive contradicts this constitutional requirement despite there being no evidence of problems with the 2020 census.
The move would fulfil a longstanding rightwing talking point that undocumented immigrants should not influence congressional representation or electoral votes. Far-right figures have long claimed that states like California gain unfair political advantage by counting non-citizens. The political activist Charlie Kirk, for example, argued in 2020 that “California gets an extra 9 electoral votes because of counting illegals.”
