President Donald Trump announced on Thursday that he will instruct the United States Department of Commerce to create a new census that will exclude undocumented immigrants from the population count.
He wrote in a post on Truth Social that the department will “immediately begin work on a new and highly accurate CENSUS based on modern facts and figures and… information gained from the Presidential Election of 2024.”
Trump also explicitly stated that “People who are in our Country illegally WILL NOT BE COUNTED IN THE CENSUS.”
The United States census takes place every ten years, and is used to determine a representative number of House seats for each state based on the number of citizens residing there. The count also determines the allocation of federal funding for each state.
Historically, the census has counted the number of people regardless of immigration status. As written in the 14th amendment the census must count “the whole number of persons in each State.”
Trump has previously attempted to change the census. In 2020, during Trump’s first term as president, he looked to add a question pertaining to one’s citizenship. That effort was blocked by the U.S. Supreme Court.
According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, as of 2022, there are an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country, and around 42% of them live in either Texas or California. If alterations are made to the census, per Trump’s request, it is expected for both of these states, with the possibility of more, to lose House seats.
This announcement comes while Texas is feuding over a redistricting vote, with many Democrats leaving the state to delay the process.
The Trump administration has maintained a firm stance on undocumented immigration, implementing policies aimed at increasing deportations during his presidency. It is unclear how the federal government plans to exclude undocumented immigrants from the census count.
