The Trump administration has moved to change the national census to include only U.S. citizens and permanent residents rather than including all those in the country, such as those present illegally in the nation.
The proposal is open for public comment for 30 days.
One of the census proposals seeks to outline residence criteria, while the second proposal adds “standards and restrictions for the inclusion of certain demographic questions on the decennial census short-form questionnaire and any other questionnaire used for the enumeration of the population.”
According to the administration, one of the main legal arguments for limiting the census to only legal residents is the “understanding that the term ‘persons,’ as used in the Apportionment Clause of Article I, Section 2, was deliberately chosen instead of ‘citizens’ to reflect the Three-Fifths Compromise but nonetheless was largely informed by (and synonymous with) the term ‘inhabitants,’ which was historically understood to refer to members of the body politic.”
It adds that “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.”
Last year, President Trump directed his administration to begin working on a new census that does not incorporate those illegally present in the United States.
“I have instructed our Department of Commerce to immediately begin work on a new and highly accurate CENSUS based on modern day facts and figures and, importantly, using the results and information gained from the Presidential Election of 2024,” he declared. “People who are in our Country illegally WILL NOT BE COUNTED IN THE CENSUS. Thank you for your attention to this matter.”
