Census Director Resigns;
Trump’s Efforts to Exclude the Undocumented from the Census Count Collapse
https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-us-news-census-2020-62d81cf59bd6e1fc6d5650a2243fd8d4
Trump has been trying to change the decennial census count by excluding the undocumented. There are an estimated 11 million undocumented residing in the US, of whom about 2.5 million live in California.
Article 1, Section 2 of the Constitution requires a census of persons by actual enumeration every 10 years. This is to be used for apportioning representation in the US Congress and direct taxes among the states. Initially, non-taxed Indians (Native Americans) were excluded and slaves were counted as 3/5ths of a person. After the Civil War, African Americans were counted as full persons as a result of the 13th and 14th Amendments. The exclusion of Indians from the census count was not fully rectified until the 1890 census. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/54847256.pdf
Since 1790, the census has counted persons regardless of their immigration or citizenship or voting rights status as the Constitution uses the word “persons”, not the word “citizens”. The White House sought to change this for the 2020 census in order to exclude undocumented residents of the US. This would have cost the states of California, Texas and Florida one seat in the next Congress and added one seat each for the states of Ohio, Minnesota and Mississippi. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/07/24/how-removing-unauthorized-immigrants-from-census-statistics-could-affect-house-reapportionment/ It would also change the configuration of districts in each state so that districts with a high percent of undocumented residents would lose representation and districts with low share of undocumented would gain.
The issue has gone to the US Supreme Court twice. In the most recent case, the Supreme Court held the issue was premature. https://www.natlawreview.com/article/supreme-court-denies-trump-administration-s-challenge-to-exclude-undocumented A year and a half earlier, the Supreme Court had ruled against the Trump Administration’s efforts to add a citizenship question to the Census questionnaire. https://www.scotusblog.com/2019/07/trump-administration-ends-effort-to-include-citizenship-question-on-2020-census/
The Trump Administration rushed to count the undocumented through alternative government documents quickly, so Trump could exclude them from the census count before his term expired. It finally abandoned its frenzied, politically driven push to the finish line last Friday. https://www.npr.org/2021/01/13/956352495/census-bureau-stops-work-on-trumps-request-for-unauthorized-immigrant-count
“Census data also influence the allocation of more than $800 billion in federal government resources to states, localities, and families every year, such as for health care, education, housing, transportation, rural access to broadband, and other services.” http://ilcountmein2020.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/AAJC-NALEO-Debunking-the-Myths-re-Citizenship-Question-Final-6.6.2018-002.pdf
Prepared by: Lucien Wulsin
Dated: 1/19/21