{"id":126953,"date":"2025-08-07T18:03:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T18:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/126953\/"},"modified":"2025-08-07T18:03:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T18:03:09","slug":"trump-calls-for-rare-mid-decade-census-to-exclude-illegal-migrants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/126953\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump calls for rare mid-decade census to exclude illegal migrants"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Trump<\/a> announced Thursday that he\u00a0had\u00a0ordered a rare, mid-decade census to exclude illegal immigrants \u2014 as a gerrymandering war<\/a> between Republicans and Democrats heats up.<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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,\u201d Trump wrote on Truth Social<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople who are in our Country illegally WILL NOT BE COUNTED IN THE CENSUS.\u201d<\/p>\n

President Trump wants the Census Bureau to skip illegal immigrants when doing the next national headcount. Xinhua\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

The Constitution stipulates that apportionment of congressional districts \u201cshall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons,\u201d which most scholars interpret as requiring the federal government to count legal and illegal immigrants as well as natural-born Americans.<\/p>\n

Currently, the US Census Bureau \u201ccollects data from all foreign-born who participate in its censuses and surveys, regardless of legal status.\u201d<\/p>\n

The decennial counts\u00a0are critical for determining how the 435 seats in the House of Representatives are allocated. Every decade after a census is completed, states undergo a redistricting process in which they determine the boundaries of their congressional districts.<\/p>\n

The Constitution requires a census every 10 years, but there have been rare occasions, such as the 1970s<\/a>, when mid-decade national headcounts were pursued. In most cases, such as the 1975 attempt, the effort for a mid-decade count was dropped. <\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s order for a mid-decade census is likely to face legal challenges from Democrats. In the past, attempts at inter-decennial headcounts were authorized by Congress, not by presidents unilaterally.<\/p>\n

During his first administration, Trump\u00a0attempted to add a citizenship question<\/a>\u00a0to the census,\u00a0but the Commerce Department scrapped the idea after legal setbacks.<\/p>\n

The last census, conducted\u00a0in<\/strong>\u00a02020,\u00a0undercounted\u00a0the population\u00a0significantly<\/a>\u00a0in many red states like Arkansas, Florida, Mississippi, Tennessee and Texas, while overcounting in many blue states like Delaware, Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island.<\/p>\n

Colorado, Florida, Montana, North Carolina, Oregon and Texas gained\u00a0House\u00a0seats\u00a0following the 2020\u00a0census, while California, Illinois, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia lost seats.<\/p>\n

The apportionment changes on balance boosted Republicans ahead of\u00a0the 2022 midterm elections.<\/p>\n

Vice President JD Vance is set to discuss redistricting during his trip to Indiana on Thursday. REUTERS<\/p>\n

But now both parties are revisiting the redistricting process \u2014 about half a decade earlier than usual \u2014 as Trump looks for ways to overcome historical headwinds and maintain the GOP\u2019s razor-thin House majority.<\/p>\n

Last month,\u00a0at Trump\u2019s behest,\u00a0Texas Republicans began taking steps toward reconfiguring the state\u2019s congressional map to potentially squeeze out five more seats for the\u00a0GOP in 2026.<\/p>\n

Texas Democrats foiled that plan \u2014 for now \u2014 by fleeing the state in the middle of a special session to block Republicans from passing the new map.<\/p>\n

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has fought to push through a new congressional map to boost Republicans in the 2026 midterms. AP<\/p>\n

Blue-state officials, including those in California, New York and elsewhere, have since threatened to overhaul their congressional maps in response\u00a0\u2014 even though California\u2019s constitutional specifically outlaws mid-decade redistricting.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s led Republicans to float the possibility of\u00a0changing the map in red states\u00a0like Missouri and Indiana,\u00a0the latter of which was visited by Vice President JD Vance Thursday.<\/p>\n

The party that holds the White House has lost seats in all but two midterm elections since 1938 \u2014 with 1998 and 2002 the lone exceptions.<\/p>\n

Trump is desperately looking to avoid that fate, as Democratic control of Congress will dramatically diminish his power and all but guarantee an onslaught of investigations during his final two years in office.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Trump announced Thursday that he\u00a0had\u00a0ordered a rare, mid-decade census to exclude illegal immigrants \u2014 as a gerrymandering…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":126954,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,77806,327,69,54763,16090,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,80,67,586,132,5230,68,1154,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-126953","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-census","10":"tag-congress","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-gerrymandering","13":"tag-illegal-immigrants","14":"tag-new-york","15":"tag-new-york-city","16":"tag-newyork","17":"tag-newyorkcity","18":"tag-ny","19":"tag-nyc","20":"tag-politics","21":"tag-united-states","22":"tag-united-states-of-america","23":"tag-unitedstates","24":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","25":"tag-us","26":"tag-us-news","27":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114988804165972666","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126953\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}