Summary
Former President Donald Trump has called for a change to the U.S. census to exclude people living in the country without legal status. This proposal repeats Trump's earlier attempts to adjust census counts, which had faced legal challenges. The U.S. Constitution requires that all people living in a state be counted for things like deciding how many seats each state gets in Congress.
Key Facts
- Trump suggested excluding undocumented immigrants from the U.S. census counts for the first time.
- He instructed the Commerce Department to work on a new census related to the 2024 presidential election results.
- The Constitution mandates a census every ten years to redistribute congressional seats.
- Legal foundations require counting all individuals living in each state for electoral purposes.
- The U.S. Supreme Court previously blocked adding a citizenship question to the 2020 census.
- Trump's proposal renews similar efforts that had faced legal resistance during his first term.
- The Census Bureau has not asked about citizenship status in its regular counting.
- The Census Bureau warns that including citizenship questions could lead to inaccurate data.
