The Trump administration has unveiled a new census proposal that could reshape how political power is distributed across the United States, including a plan to exclude many noncitizens from the population count used to allocate House seats and Electoral College votes.
The proposal, released Wednesday by the U.S. Census Bureau, would establish new rules for determining who counts for congressional apportionment and remove race, ethnicity and sexual-orientation questions from future 10-yearly census forms.
Census officials argue the changes are needed to better align the census with its constitutional purpose of determining representation in Congress, writing, “illegal aliens (among others) should not be included in the apportionment count, as they are not true inhabitants, members of the body politic, or persons with a ‘usual residence’ in the United States due to their lack of a sufficient tie and allegiance to the United States.”
If adopted, the proposal would likely face immediate legal challenges and could reignite a debate that has stretched across multiple administrations as to whether everyone living in the U.S. should be counted when determining political representation, or only those with more permanent legal ties to the country.
Newsweek reached out to the U.S. Census Bureau for further comment Wednesday morning.
What the Census Bureau Is Proposing
At the center of the proposal is a new definition of who should be counted in the census for allocating Congressional seats.
The Census Bureau proposes counting U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents while excluding undocumented immigrants and potentially other foreign nationals whose legal status is deemed less durable than permanent residency.
The agency argues that the Constitution’s requirement to count persons “in each State” should be interpreted through the concept of “usual residence” and that people living in the country illegally do not have sufficient ties or allegiance to the U.S. to qualify.
The proposal would also allow the Bureau to rely heavily on administrative records from federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Treasury Department and State Department, when determining whether someone should be included in the count. Officials are also specifically seeking public comment on whether a legal-status question should be added to future census forms.
The other major proposed change revolves around barring questions about race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation from the questionnaire. Officials argue that removing those questions would reduce response burdens, increase participation and improve the accuracy of the population count used for congressional representation.
The agency says demographic information could still be collected through other surveys such as the American Community Survey.
Potential Impact on Congress and Electoral Votes
The census determines how the 435 seats in the House of Representatives are divided among the states after each census. Electoral College votes are then calculated based on a state’s House delegation plus its two U.S. senators.
As a result, even relatively small population changes can carry enormous political consequences.
A state that gains enough population to secure an additional House seat also gains an additional Electoral College vote. Likewise, states that lose population relative to others can lose both congressional representation and influence in presidential elections for an entire decade.
The proposal does not estimate how congressional seats might change if undocumented immigrants are excluded from the count. But immigration and census experts have long noted that states with larger immigrant populations, including California, Texas, Florida, New York, and New Jersey, would likely be among those most affected by any change in census methodology.
The stakes extend beyond Washington. Census data is also used by states to draw legislative districts and are relied upon by governments and researchers for demographic analysis and planning.
Supporters of the proposal are likely to argue that congressional representation should be based on people who have established a lawful and permanent connection to the U.S. Critics are expected to contend that excluding residents from the apportionment count would depart from longstanding census practice and reduce representation in communities with large immigrant populations.
Trump’s Previous Census Fight
The proposal echoes one of the most contentious census battles of President Donald Trump’s first term.
In July 2020, Trump issued a memorandum directing federal agencies to seek ways to exclude undocumented immigrants from the population totals used for congressional apportionment. The administration argued at the time that House seats should be allocated based on the number of lawful inhabitants in each state rather than everyone living there.
The effort sparked immediate legal challenges and never took effect before the completion of the 2020 apportionment process.
The current proposal repeatedly references that debate and argues that undocumented immigrants should not be considered part of the apportionment base because they are not “true inhabitants” with sufficient ties to the U.S.
The administration also previously fought to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census. In 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court blocked that effort, finding the government’s explanation for the change was inadequate.
Importantly, however, the Court did not find citizenship questions inherently unconstitutional. The Census Bureau cites that ruling in the new proposal while noting it is considering whether to ask respondents directly about legal status.
Taken together, the proposal represents the most ambitious effort since Trump’s first term to alter both who is counted in the census and how information is collected.
Which Other Countries Don’t Ask About Race or Ethnicity?
The U.S. has long collected racial and ethnic data through the census, making the Bureau’s proposal particularly notable.
Several major democracies take a different approach.
France largely does not collect official racial or ethnic statistics because of legal and philosophical concerns that classifying individuals by race could undermine the country’s commitment to equal citizenship.
Germany generally does not collect racial data in the way the U.S. does, instead focusing on nationality and migration-related information.
By contrast, countries including Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia collect various forms of identity-related information, though the precise categories and terminology differ substantially from those used by the U.S.
The Census Bureau argues that race and ethnicity questions are not necessary to fulfill the constitutional purpose of the census and that limiting demographic questions would help improve response rates and reduce disclosure risks.
What Happens Next
The proposal will officially be published as a proposed rule Thursday and will then be open for public comment. Census officials say they are seeking feedback on both the proposed residence criteria and the restrictions on demographic questions before moving forward.
Even if finalized, the plan would almost certainly face court challenges from states, voting-rights groups and immigrant advocacy organizations.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Gabe Whisnant and Robert Greenall