Photo courtesy of United States Census Bureau
President Donald Trump has directed a mid-decade census that would omit undocumented immigrants from population counts used for representation and funding, drawing swift criticism from officials and constitutional law experts.
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump has directed the Department of Commerce to begin work on a mid-decade “highly accurate” census that would exclude undocumented immigrants from the official population count used for congressional apportionment and the allocation of federal funding.
Announced Thursday via Truth Social, the plan calls for using recent federal data, including information from the 2024 presidential election, to recalculate population figures. Trump said individuals in the country without legal status “will not be counted.”
By law, the decennial census counts all residents of the United States, regardless of immigration status, under Article I, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution and the Fourteenth Amendment. Legal experts note that the Census Act allows mid-decade counts only for funding or statistical purposes, not for redistricting or apportioning House seats. Any change to who is counted for apportionment would require congressional authorization.
The proposal mirrors Trump’s 2020 memorandum ordering the exclusion of undocumented immigrants from apportionment counts, an effort blocked by lower courts and ultimately dismissed by the U.S. Supreme Court as premature without addressing its constitutionality in Trump v. New York, 592 U.S. 125 (2020).
Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin condemned the latest plan as “illegal insanity,” warning that it would undermine constitutional norms and disenfranchise immigrant communities. Civil rights advocates and state officials are preparing legal challenges, and analysts say any attempt to implement such a census for apportionment would likely be halted in the courts.
Supporters argue the measure could provide data on the citizen voting-age population to guide redistricting in Republican-led states. Critics counter that it politicizes an essential government function and could shift representation and federal resources away from states with large immigrant populations.
