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census
Trump Pushes Blatantly Unconstitutional Plan for New Mid-Decade Census
"Donald Trump has no power to alter either the timing or who is counted," said one prominent elections attorney.
Aug 07, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday pushed for a new census to be drawn up in a move that would flatly violate the United States Constitution, which states explicitly that the census shall be conducted once every ten years and shall count all people within each state.
In a post on his Truth Social page, Trump said that he had "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."
The president then added that "people who are in our Country illegally WILL NOT BE COUNTED IN THE CENSUS."
Many constitutional law experts, however, were quick to point out that Trump lacks any kind of power to demand the creation of a mid-decade census that excludes undocumented immigrants under the United States Constitution.
Anthony Michael Kreis, a professor of constitutional law at Georgia State College of Law, wrote on X that the "Constitution's text is plain" regarding the census and it doesn't allow for anything resembling Trump's plan to exclude undocumented immigrants from the count.
Kreis specifically pointed to the changes to the census made by the 14th Amendment, which demands that the census count "the whole number of persons in each State," as a legal dagger in the heart of Trump's scheme.
"The 14th Amendment's mandate that the census 'count[s] the whole number of persons in each State' governs us in no uncertain terms," he argued.
Elections attorney Marc Elias similarly dismissed Trump's plan as a flagrant violation of the Constitution.
"The Constitution dictates that the census is a count [of] 'all persons' conducted every 'ten years,'" he wrote on Bluesky. "Donald Trump has no power to alter either the timing or who is counted."
The United States Supreme Court in 2019 blocked the first Trump administration from adding a question about residents' citizenship to the 2020 census, and it's not clear how Trump's order for a new census excluding undocumented immigrants would be different from his prior attempt.
In addition to questions of constitutional legality, Trump's plan also has issues when it comes to sheer logistics.
Michael McDonald, a political scientist at the University of Florida, argued that Trump's plan is wildly impractical given the resources and time needed to successfully conduct an accurate census.
"Just from a logistical standpoint it is not feasible to conduct a 'new' mid-decade census with accuracy," he wrote on Bluesky. "To give a sense of the scale of what is required, preparations are already underway for the *2030* census. This will add chaos to the Census Bureau and degrade the accuracy of the 2030 census."
CNN political reporter Aaron Blake also noted on X that it's unclear that excluding undocumented immigrants from the census would even be much of a political boon for the GOP. As evidence, Blake pointed to a 2020 estimate from Pew Research Center projecting that Republican-controlled states such as Florida and Texas would each lose a seat if their undocumented immigrant populations weren't counted, which would balance out projected GOP gains in Alabama and Ohio under such circumstances.
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Docs Expose Trump's 'Illegal' Effort to Help GOP by Weaponizing Census
"It is clear that legislative reforms are needed to prevent any future illegal or unconstitutional efforts to interfere with the census and chip away at our democracy," said the House Committee on Oversight and Reform chair.
Jul 20, 2022
A U.S. House of Representatives panel probing the Trump administration's attempt to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census on Wednesday released a memorandum underscoring that the failed effort was politically motivated.
"The documents ultimately obtained by the committee... shed additional light on the depth of partisan manipulation in the 2020 census."
The memo focuses on documents that were finally shared with the panel in January after former President Donald Trump's commerce secretary and attorney general, Wilbur Ross and William Barr, were held in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over requested materials.
"The documents ultimately obtained by the committee--including the legal memorandum prepared for Secretary Ross and secret communications between Trump administration lawyers and political appointees--shed additional light on the depth of partisan manipulation in the 2020 census, including senior officials' focus on using a citizenship question to alter apportionment counts and their illegal attempt to develop a pretext," the memo states.
"These documents exposed the vulnerability of our national statistical system to partisan manipulation and highlighted the need for Congress to protect the constitutionally mandated census from abuses of power and political interference," the memo continues.
\u201c.@GOPOversight disagrees with six former U.S. Census Bureau directors, dozens of experts and researchers, and the U.S. CONSTITUTION.\n\nAdding a citizenship question to the U.S. Census for apportionment purposes is unconstitutional and illegal, period.\u201d— Oversight Committee (@Oversight Committee) 1658329594
As the panel's report lays out, the documents from the departments of Commerce and Justice (DOJ) show that:
- Contrary to Secretary Ross' testimony to Congress, congressional apportionment was central to his efforts to add a citizenship question;
- The initial draft of the legal memo warned that using a citizenship question for apportionment would likely violate the Constitution;
- Commerce officials downplayed legal concerns and altered the memo to suggest the citizenship question could be used for apportionment;
- Even as they developed a pretext, Trump administration officials privately admitted their "hook" was that the president or Congress could decide to use citizenship data for apportionment; and
- Secretary Ross secretly steered DOJ towards the pretextual rationale.
"Lest anyone doubted that what the Trump administration was up to was wrong, these documents show that even the Trump administration itself knew that what it was doing was illegal," Thomas Wolf, deputy director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, told The Washington Post on Wednesday.
Civil rights groups have long slammed the Trump administration's push for inserting a citizenship question into the census--which informs the allocation of federal funding and the drawing of political voting maps--as a bid to benefit Republican candidates for office.
John C. Yang, president and executive director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice - AAJC, one of the groups that challenged the Trump effort, nodded to that critique on Wednesday.
"The documents released today demonstrate the depths to which political actors sought to corrupt a basic function enumerated in the Constitution: the counting of all people in America every 10 years," Yang told The New York Times. "Secretary Ross chose to pursue his political goals through whatever means available."
Both the committee's memo and chair, Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), pointed to the findings as further evidence of the need for reforms--specifically those included in the Ensuring a Fair and Accurate Census Act that she introduced last week.
\u201cWe applaud @RepMaloney\u2019s recognition of Congress\u2019s oversight of the census and the need to limit the possibility of future interference.\n\nWe look forward to working with her and her office to reform the census and restore public confidence in the @uscensusbureau's vital work.\u201d— The Leadership Conference (@The Leadership Conference) 1658338210
"For years, the Trump administration delayed and obstructed the oversight committee's investigation into the true reason for adding a citizenship question to the 2020 census, even after the Supreme Court ruled the administration's efforts were illegal," Maloney said in a statement Wednesday.
Though the high court's 2019 decision effectively blocked the inclusion of the citizenship question and a federal court ruled against a July 2020 Trump memorandum intended to exclude undocumented immigrants from the census, a government analysis confirmed this year that minorities were significantly undercounted.
Maloney said that the committee's new memo "pulls back the curtain on this shameful conduct and shows clearly how the Trump administration secretly tried to manipulate the census for political gain while lying to the public and Congress about their goals."
The congresswoman added that "it is clear that legislative reforms are needed to prevent any future illegal or unconstitutional efforts to interfere with the census and chip away at our democracy."
"My bill, the Ensuring a Fair and Accurate Census Act, is commonsense legislation that will help prevent a similar crisis from occurring again and will protect one of our nation's most vital democratic institutions from partisan exploitation," she continued, calling on the Democrat-controlled House to swiftly pass the legislation "to safeguard the integrity and independence of the U.S. Census Bureau."
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As Feared, 2020 Census Significantly Undercounted Minorities
"This undercount means we are saddled with inaccurate numbers for the next decade," said one rights advocate. "The consequences are serious."
Mar 10, 2022
Latino Americans were significantly undercounted in the 2020 U.S. Census, according to an analysis released Thursday by the Census Bureau--a result which advocacy groups said was what former President Donald Trump's administration intended to happen when it attempted to change the decennial survey.
"This was intentional."
The census miscounted the U.S. population by 18.8 million people--an overall count that was relatively consistent with past surveys but that saw communities of color undercounted at higher rates than in past years.
Following Trump's efforts to add a citizenship question and to stop undocumented immigrants from being counted for the apportionment of U.S. House seats, the undercount of Latino people tripled from 1.54% in 2010 to 4.99% in 2020.
"This was intentional," said Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas), warning that "the undercount will strip Latino communities of government funding and electoral power."
\u201cThis was intentional. After Trump tried to use the Census to enforce his racism and xenophobia, Latinos were undercounted at 3X the 2010 rate.\n\nThe undercount will strip Latino communities of government funding and electoral power. Congress must not allow this to happen again.\u201d— Joaquin Castro (@Joaquin Castro) 1646933732
The undercount for people who identify as "some other race" was also statistically significant compared to the results in 2010, rising from 1.63% to 4.34%. Black Americans and Indigenous people were also undercounted, but at lower rates than the other groups.
Meanwhile, white Americans were overcounted at double the rate found in 2010.
"These numbers are devastating," Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League, told the Post. "The warnings we gave, the concerns that we raised, were absolutely true, and today we find ourselves with a census that is neither complete nor accurate."
The Census Bureau was challenged by numerous factors in 2020, as the coronavirus pandemic delayed the survey and wildfires in the West kept census-takers from reaching people who had not filled out the questionnaire online.
Critics said as the bureau was preparing to take the census that Trump's push to include a question about whether household members were U.S. citizens would intimidate Latino residents out of responding--warning that significant damage was done even after the former president's efforts failed.
Trump also moved up the deadline for finishing the count, leading to concerns of inaccuracies among census experts.
"Terrible demographic data has many consequences in our communities, especially in public health."
"I lay this at the feet of Donald Trump and [former Commerce Secretary] Wilbur Ross and their efforts to disrupt the census and make it as difficult as possible for Latinos to participate," Arturo Vargas, chief executive of the Latino advocacy group NALEO Educational Fund, told the Post.
"I said from the beginning when the first numbers were released that I smelled smoke," he added, referring to an analysis released in September by the American Statistical Association. "Today we learned that the 2020 Census was a five-alarm fire."
Census data is used to determine the allocation of $1.5 trillion in annual funding for communities based on how many residents are reported, including funds for Medicaid, public housing, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and highway planning. The numbers are also used to apportion U.S. House seats and draw congressional district maps.
"Terrible demographic data has many consequences in our communities, especially in public health," said epidemiologist Jessica Malaty Rivera.
\u201cA sadly unsurprising outcome: "2020 Census Undercounted U.S. Population by Nearly 19 Million"...of Color. \nTerrible demographic data has many consequences in our communities, especially in public health. https://t.co/kQOl62G6FH\u201d— Jessica Malaty Rivera, MS (@Jessica Malaty Rivera, MS) 1646937681
Damon Hewitt, president and executive director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said the undercounting of communities of color "robs us of the opportunity to be the directors of our fate, reducing our representation and limiting our power while depriving policymakers of the information they need to make informed decisions about where the next hospital will be built or where the next school should be located."
"This undercount means we are saddled with inaccurate numbers for the next decade," he added. "The consequences are serious."
Correction: An earlier version of this article stated that 18.8 million people had been undercounted by the 2020 U.S. Census. The article has been changed to reflect that 18.8 million people were miscounted rather than undercounted.
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