US President Donald Trump on Thursday ordered officials to work on a new census excluding undocumented immigrants, as the White House presses Republican states to draw more favorable voter maps ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
Trump called for a “new and highly accurate” census that he wanted based on unspecified “modern day facts and figures” gleaned from the 2024 election.
“People who are in our Country illegally WILL NOT BE COUNTED IN THE CENSUS,” he said in the social media post.
The US Constitution since 1790 has required a census every 10 years that counts the “whole number of persons in each state” — including people in the country illegally.
The next one is not due until 2030, although preparations for the enormous task are already underway.
Trump did not make clear if he was referring to the regularly scheduled population count or if he wanted a special survey undertaken earlier.
The census is used to determine how many members of Congress are elected from each state, and the Pew Research Center estimates that ignoring unauthorized migrants in 2020 would have deprived California, Florida and Texas of one House seat each.
It is also used for apportioning votes in the state-by-state “electoral college” that decides presidential elections and for allocating trillions of dollars in federal funding.
Trump attempted similar moves in his first term, including the addition of a citizenship question to the census, but was blocked by the Supreme Court.
The justices declined to rule on whether the millions of people in the country without legal status should be excluded.
