Trump administration proposes excluding some immigrants from census

The Trump administration proposed a major change to the U.S. census on Wednesday that would exclude undocumented immigrants and some legal immigrants from the population count used to distribute federal money and apportion seats in the House of Representatives.

The proposal, released by the Commerce Department and published in the Federal Register, would count U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents but exclude immigrants without legal status and foreign nationals whose legal status is considered temporary or less durable than permanent residency. The Census Bureau said such people should be left out “due to their lack of a sufficient tie and allegiance to the United States.”

The change would mark a sharp break from the way the census has historically been conducted. The census, held every 10 years, has counted the “whole number of persons” in the United States under the 14th Amendment, regardless of citizenship or immigration status. The 1790 Census Act instructed officials to count anyone with a “usual place of abode” in the country.

Census figures shape political power and public spending. States use the data to draw congressional districts, and the numbers determine how House seats are divided among the states. The data also helps allocate federal assistance. Al Jazeera reported that Census Bureau data was used to distribute more than $2.8 trillion in federal funding in fiscal year 2021.

The proposal says the bureau is considering using its “enormously broad access to administrative records” to verify respondents’ legal status. Those records could include data from the Departments of Homeland Security, Treasury, Health and Human Services, and Defense, as well as the U.S. Postal Service. The proposal would also add questions about legal immigration status to the short-form questionnaire.

The plan revives a fight from President Donald Trump’s first term, when his administration tried to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census. The Supreme Court blocked that effort in 2019, finding the administration’s rationale appeared “contrived.” The effort was abandoned after Joe Biden took office in 2021.

Trump has continued to argue that undocumented immigrants should not be included. Last year, he called for the 2020 census to be redone using “results and information gained from the Presidential Election of 2024.” On Truth Social, he wrote: “People who are in our country illegally will not be counted.”

The Census Bureau is also reconsidering questions related to “race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation.” The proposal cites the “(potentially) sensitive nature” of such questions and “the reduced need for or usefulness of this information.” It says “substantial doubts about the meaning, significance, and impact” of categorizing people by race and ethnicity have become prominent in national debate.

“For all these reasons, the Census Bureau is re-evaluating the proper role of these demographic questions,” the proposal reads. It also argues that reducing the number of questions could boost participation and “enable the Census Bureau to obtain a more complete population count directly from respondents, which helps ensure fairer political representation.”

Democrats and advocacy groups are expected to challenge the proposal if it advances. Democrats on the House Oversight Committee accused Trump of trying to “rig” the census and said: “The 14th amendment is clear: the census is meant to count ALL people living in the United States. We will fight this.”

William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, told Al Jazeera that the proposal goes beyond census mechanics. “The administration is trying to change the idea of who is American,” he said. Frey warned the plan could discourage participation even if it is not implemented. “That’s the scary part,” he said. “The administration has been trying to keep certain segments of the population from fully participating in the government. So it is quite damaging even if these proposals don’t come to fruition.”

The U.S. Census Bureau did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.