President Trump signed an executive order Tuesday to prevent illegal immigrants from being counted for the purpose of redrawing congressional districts after the 2020 census.
Trump will sign a Memorandum of Distribution on “Ensuring that American citizens receive adequate representation in Congress.”
A White House official said he clarifies that those in the country would not illegally be included in the redesign process, known as distribution, of congressional districts after the census. Census counts are used to determine the allocation of seats in the House of Representatives, the number of voters in the Electoral College, and hundreds of billions of dollars in federal spending.
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“Excluding illegal aliens for the purpose of distribution reflects a better understanding of our Constitution and democratic principles,” said the official.
The order says that the Constitution “does not specifically define who should be included in the distribution base.”
“Although the Constitution requires that ‘persons in each State, excluding unencumbered Indians’, be listed in the census, this requirement has never been understood to include in the distribution base each individual physically present within the limits of a state at the time of the census, “says the order.
“Instead, the term ‘people in each state’ has been interpreted to mean that only the ‘inhabitants’ of each state should be included,” he says. “Determining which people should be considered ‘inhabitants’ for the cast requires the exercise of judgment.”
He then says that that discretion “delegated to the executive branch to determine who qualifies as ‘inhabitant’ includes the authority to exclude foreigners who are not in a state of legal immigration from the distribution base.”
TRUMP, ‘DOES NOT GO BACK’ IN EFFORT TO COUNT CITIZENS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STRUGGLE FOR THE CENSUS, ANNOUNCES AN EXECUTIVE ORDER
It comes as part of a continuing push by the Trump administration to make sure illegal immigrants are not included in the census. The order will likely be subject to legal challenge by groups of immigrant activists and others.
Last year, the Supreme Court blocked the inclusion of a citizenship question in the census and sent the question to the lower courts after concluding that the Trump administration’s reasoning for including that question was insufficient. It had opposed Democrats and immigrant groups on the grounds that it could discourage immigrants from responding.
Later, Trump signed an executive order to obtain an accurate count of citizens and non-citizens present in the country.
Attorney General Bill Barr said at the time that the information gathered through the executive order could be helpful in determining the composition of the Electoral College and the distribution of Congress.
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“That information will be used for countless purposes. For example, there is a current dispute over whether illegal aliens can be included for distribution purposes … We will study this issue,” Barr said.
Fox News’ Matt Leach contributed to this report.
