The memorandum marks the latest effort by the Trump administration to change the way American populations are counted and advance the President’s immigration agenda. And like previous efforts, the problem will end in court.
“Therefore, I have determined that respect for the law and protection of the integrity of the democratic process justify the exclusion of illegal aliens from the distribution base, as far as possible and to the maximum extent of the discretion of the President in accordance with the law. ” order state.
The American Civil Liberties Union plans to challenge the memo, Dale Ho, director of the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project, said in a statement.
“(Trump’s) last attempt to weaponize the census for an attack on immigrant communities will be deemed unconstitutional. We will see it in court and win again,” Ho said.
Trump has always tried to use the US census as a way to advance his immigration priorities, but the Supreme Court rejected an attempt to ask respondents if they are US citizens in 2019. However, the administration may collect information on the citizenship status of other media.
The courts will probably have the last word. The Constitution says that representation in Congress is distributed based on the “total number of free people,” not just American citizens.
“The legal problem is that the Fourteenth Amendment says that representatives will be distributed among the various states according to their respective numbers, counting the total number of people,” said Joshua Geltzer of the Georgetown University Law Center.
“That means the House seats are divided based on everyone present in all 50 states, not just those legally present,” he said.
Also, Geltzer said, the census does not currently ask whether anyone illegally migrated to the United States. “Presumably, the Trump administration will have to rely on a hodgepodge from other records to guess the population they intend to use for the cast.”
Michael Li, who serves as senior advisor to the Brennan Center Democracy Program, questioned how the federal government would make the determination on whether someone is illegal.
“The Constitution requires counting everyone – children, immigrants, everyone – it has no exclusions based on legal status,” Li said.
This story has been updated with additional developments on Tuesday.
CNN’s Catherine Shoichet and Kate Sullivan contributed to this report.
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