Trump Orders Exclusion of Undocumented Immigrants from Census, Igniting Constitutional Challenge

In a move set to spark immediate legal and political battles, Donald Trump has issued a directive ordering the Commerce Department to conduct a new U.S. census that explicitly excludes undocumented immigrants from the official population count. Announced on Thursday via Truth Social, the former president stated the census would be ‘based on modern day facts and figures’ and leverage data from the 2024 Presidential Election, with a clear mandate that ‘people who are in our country illegally will not be counted’.

This unprecedented order directly contradicts over a century of precedent and the 14th Amendment’s ‘whole number of persons’ provision, which has historically mandated the counting of all residents regardless of immigration or citizenship status. Legal scholars and advocacy groups are poised to challenge the directive, which, if implemented, could drastically alter congressional representation, electoral college apportionment, and the distribution of billions in federal funding for essential services across states.

States with significant non-citizen populations, such as California, Texas, Florida, and New York, stand to lose substantial political influence and federal resources. The order aligns with a long-standing conservative objective to prevent undocumented immigrants from influencing political power. Efforts to implement similar citizenship-only counts during Trump’s first presidency were blocked by courts and later reversed by the Biden administration.

The directive comes amidst renewed legislative pushes from Republican lawmakers, including Senator Bill Hagerty’s recent reintroduction of the Equal Representation Act in late June, which aims to count only citizens for congressional and electoral purposes. Despite the U.S. Census Bureau’s own findings that the 2020 count was statistically accurate, Trump’s latest order signifies a continued aggressive stance on immigration policy, including broader efforts to increase deportations.

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