What's Going on with the U.S. Census?

President Donald Trump has recently called for a new U.S. Census that excludes undocumented immigrants. This has reignited the legal and constitutional debate. Trump made a similar attempt to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census. This attempt was blocked in a 2019 decision made by the US Supreme Court. While the proposal is framed as an effort to produce “accurate” population data, it directly challenges the long-standing principle that the census must count all people living in the country, not just citizens. The Constitution, specifically the 14th Amendment, requires the census to include the “whole number of persons in each state,” a standard that has guided every census since 1790.

Beyond its legality, the proposal carries significant consequences for representation and redistricting. Census data is used to determine how congressional seats are divided among states and how voting districts are drawn. Removing undocumented immigrants from that count would shift political power away from diverse, immigrant-heavy states and cities, impacting not only who gets represented in Congress but also how fairly that representation is drawn.

It also threatens the distribution of federal resources, which are tied to census figures. Over 2 trillion dollars in funding for public services like education, transportation, and healthcare could be redirected away from communities that no longer count undocumented immigrant populations; many of which already face systemic challenges. Historically, undercounting populations leads to long-term gaps in infrastructure and social support, perpetuating marginalization and underrepresentation. 

At its core, this is more than a political manipulation, it’s a test of whether the U.S. will continue to uphold the 14th Amendment, regardless of immigration status. Any move to exclude people from the census isn’t just a legal question; it’s a question about the health of representative democracy.