Immigrants in the US illegally will be excluded from allocating state seats in the House of Representatives based on the 2020 census, President Donald Trump has announced. Democrats called the move racist and unconstitutional.
On Tuesday, Trump instructed the Department of Commerce to “exclude illegal aliens from the apportionment base following the 2020 census,” meaning that non-citizens will not be counted in the population of those states when the number of seats in the House is next apportioned.
The action “reflects a better understanding of the Constitution and is consistent with the principles of our representative democracy,” Trump said in a statement. Giving congressional representation to aliens who enter or remain in the country illegally would “create perverse incentives and undermine our system of government.”
Just as we do not give political power to people who are here temporarily, we should not give political power to people who should not be here at all.
The census-based apportionment is mandated in Article I of the US Constitution, originally applying to “whole persons” – to exclude slaves – and later amended after slavery was abolished in 1865. According to the White House, the census has previously excluded tourists and visitors, while counting diplomats and military personnel physically overseas.
The announcement was met with howls of outrage from the opposition. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) denounced it as “flagrantly unconstitutional” and said it amounted to “another attempt by Trump to use scaremongering against immigrants [and] rig the system.”
It is flagrantly unconstitutional to exclude people from the Census count based on their immigration status. The Constitution requires that every person be counted. This is another attempt by Trump to use scaremongering against immigrants & rig the system. https://t.co/bOHZxBP6aG
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