President Donald Trump announced his plan to conduct a new U.S. census that excludes undocumented immigrants on Thursday.
“I 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,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“People who are in our Country illegally WILL NOT BE COUNTED IN THE CENSUS. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” he continued.
The census is counted every 10 years and is the gold standard for population tallying. It’s used to determine how many House seats each state has and allocate federal funding. The census counts everyone living in the U.S., including “foreign-born” residents like naturalized citizens, people with green cards, undocumented immigrants, refugees, and students here on visas.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, an immigration lawyer with the American Immigration Council, called Trump’s proposal “wildly unconstitutional.”
“The Constitution makes clear that all people must be counted. Not all citizens. People,” he wrote.
Trump has attempted to alter the census before: In his first term, he tried to add a question about citizenship to the 2020 census and was blocked by the Supreme Court.
The president’s hope to conduct the census sooner also aligns with his gerrymandering scheme, as redistricting is only meant to take place once every decade, after the census is completed.
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