There are many reasons why the White House’s announcement last week that it would exclude unauthorized immigrants counted in the 2020 census from population data used to divvy up House seats among the states is terrible: It’s racist. It’s unconstitutional. It changes rules months into a massive data collection effort made harder by a pandemic. It upends a practice used for decades. And it’s impossible.
How in the next five months can census workers come up with a formula that survives legal scrutiny that arbitrarily declares a certain percentage of people in a state to be unauthorized? They can’t.
Just last year the Supreme Court struck down President Trump’s earlier effort to discourage unauthorized immigrants from participating in the census by including a citizenship question. In his majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that the Trump administration failed to meet its obligation under federal law to show the policy change had been ordered after careful deliberation.
Trump’s executive order shows zero deliberation.
Comments are not available on this story. Read more about why we allow commenting on some stories and not on others.
We believe it's important to offer commenting on certain stories as a benefit to our readers. At its best, our comments sections can be a productive platform for readers to engage with our journalism, offer thoughts on coverage and issues, and drive conversation in a respectful, solutions-based way. It's a form of open discourse that can be useful to our community, public officials, journalists and others.
We do not enable comments on everything — exceptions include most crime stories, and coverage involving personal tragedy or sensitive issues that invite personal attacks instead of thoughtful discussion.
You can read more here about our commenting policy and terms of use. More information is also found on our FAQs.
Show less