Few statistics are more important to American society and government than the national census. As prescribed in the Constitution, counts of the number of persons living in the country have been prepared every 10 years since 1790. Those counts are used to apportion to the states seats in the US House of Representatives and delegates to the Presidential Electoral College.
One of the basic questions pertaining to the Census methodology is, Who do you count? If noncitizens are counted, as they have historically been, then states with relatively high numbers of noncitizens benefit over those whose numbers are relatively low. Since the number of House seats is capped at 435, if one state gains representation, another must lose. It therefore pays, in that respect, for states to attract as many illegals as possible.
One state with such an illegal-friendly policy is California. California lost population between the census years of 2010 to 2020, and so therefore is expected to lose representation. However, including illegals in the count would mitigate the loss to one seat. Excluding illegals, California will lose two seats.
President Trump believes including illegal residents distorts the census, since he in fact wants all illegals to be physically removed from the country. As a consequence, the President announced on Truth Social this morning that he is ordering a new, mid-term census, which will omit counting illegals and provide a more accurate picture of the country’s demographics.
The proposal is a sensible one in keeping with the administration’s policies. For that reason, it is sure to be universally opposed by the left.
For more, see Politico.