The GOP-led House passed a bill that would eliminate noncitizens from the tally gathered during a census and used to decide how many House seats and Electoral College votes each state gets.
Some Republicans in Congress are pushing to require a citizenship question on the questionnaire for the once-a-decade census and exclude people who aren’t citizens from the count that helps determine political power in the United States.
But the proposal has set off alarms among redistricting experts, civil rights groups and Democratic lawmakers as a reprise of efforts by the Trump administration to place limits that would dramatically alter the dynamics of the census, which plays a foundational role in the distribution of political power and federal funding.
That push was seen as an effort to bolster the Republican agenda on immigration before the November elections, with Donald Trump as the party’s presumptive nominee against Democratic President Joe Biden.
Following that defeat, the government under Trump tried to discern the citizenship status of every U.S. resident through administrative records and sought to exclude people who were in the U.S. illegally from the count used for apportioning congressional seats.
“We should not reward states and cities that violate federal immigration laws and maintain sanctuary policies with increased Congressional representation,” Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson said in a statement after the vote.
If Trump becomes president, his administration could take steps to add a citizenship question without making the procedural mistakes cited by the Supreme Court in its 2019 ruling, said Jeffrey Wice, a redistricting expert.
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“We should not reward states and cities that violate federal immigration laws and maintain sanctuary policies with increased Congressional representation,” Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson said in a statement after the vote.
We shouldn't reward states and cities that turn black people into slaves to facilitate prison gerrymandering either. The only difference between prisoners and immigrants is that Mike Johnson and his anti-American can't exploit immigrants for cheap labor the way they can with literal slaves.
"The most recent time the House of Representatives gained members due to census data was after the 2020 census, which took effect in 2023. The 2020 census results led to five states gaining one seat and Texas gaining two, while seven states lost one seat. The states that gained seats were: Colorado, Florida, Montana, North Carolina, and Oregon."