President Donald Trump ordered the Commerce Department to re-run the count of the U.S. population that took place five years ago while excluding any migrants in the U.S. from the total.
Writing Thursday on Truth Social, Trump said he’d asked the department, which oversees the U.S. Census Bureau, to “immediately” start what he called “a new and highly accurate CENSUS based on modern day facts and figures” making use of “the results and information gained from the Presidential Election of 2024.”
“People who are in our Country illegally WILL NOT BE COUNTED IN THE CENSUS. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” Trump wrote.
It’s unclear how the president wants the bureau to use the election information to help calculate its population totals.
During Trump’s first term, his administration pushed to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census but was rebuked by the U.S. Supreme Court, which said then-Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross had not followed the proper legal procedures to add such a question to the census.
Documents made public during that court case showed the aim of adding a citizenship question was to allow for the Census Bureau to report population numbers that included the number of U.S. citizens in a given state, which would have permitted House seats to be apportioned based on citizen populations rather than the “whole number of persons” in each state as required by the constitution.
Like that previous failed effort, Trump’s new demand appears to be aimed at deliberately undercounting the population in large cities that often send Democrats to Congress by excluding anyone without legal status from the census count.
It’s unclear what he’s asking for would be legal, and neither the White House nor the Census Bureau immediately responded to requests for comment from The Independent.
Both the law and the constitution require the “census of population” to be conducted on April 1 at the start of every decade, with state populations reported for the purpose of apportioning House of Representatives seats by January of the next year.
While there is a provision in the law allowing a “mid-decade census” five years into a given decade, such a survey was supposed to take place on April 1 of this year and the government is expressly prohibited by law from using it for “apportionment of Representatives in Congress among the several States” or the drawing of Congressional districts.
Trump’s demand for a new census excluding migrants comes as he is desperately pushing for Republican-led states to redraw congressional districts to make it harder, if not impossible, for Democrats to gain a majority of seats in next year’s mid-term elections.
The president’s party almost always loses House seats — and often control of the House — in the first congressional election after the start of his term, and a loss of a House majority would subject Trump to actual oversight from a Democratic-led House and give Democrats leverage in budget negotiations that they currently lack.
Earlier this week, Democrats in the Texas state legislature fled to a group of Democratic-led states with the aim of denying the GOP-led legislature the quorum needed to conduct business.
The Texas legislature is attempting to redraw their House districts to eliminate five Democratic seats, most of which are held by non-white representatives who represent cities with large minority populations.
What to know as Trump's immigration crackdown strips tuition breaks from thousands of students
Bomb threat forces Texas redistrict-fighting Democrats to flee again — this time from Illinois hotel
Ukraine war latest: Trump, Putin to meet ‘in coming days’ but no Zelensky invite yet
Takeaways from AP’s report on Alaska Natives’ response to oil and mining proposals
Trump's push for drilling, mining sharpens debate for Alaska Natives about land they view as sacred
