Trump’s 2030 census plan would eliminate race questions and exclude some immigrants from count
TheGrio...
The proposed overhaul could reshape political representation, federal funding and how racial disparities are measured.
The Trump administration is proposing a major rewrite of the 2030 census that would exclude undocumented immigrants, leave out some people who are legally in the country temporarily and remove questions about race and ethnicity. The Trump census proposal goes further than Trump’s 2025 push to exclude undocumented immigrants and revives a census fight that courts blocked in 2020.
The U.S. Census Bureau submitted the proposal Wednesday, Reuters reported. The proposal would limit the census count to U.S. citizens and permanent residents, a change Reuters says could significantly affect political representation and federal funding.
That means undocumented immigrants would not be counted, but neither would some people living legally in the United States on temporary visas or other lawful temporary statuses. The proposal is open for public comment for 30 days before the bureau moves further toward the 2030 census.
The plan would also eliminate questions collecting information on race and ethnicity. Those questions have been part of the census since the first national count in 1790 and are used in data that helps enforce anti-discrimination laws, draw legislative districts and determine how federal resources are distributed.
Civil rights advocates warn the changes could leave communities with large immigrant populations undercounted and with less political representation or federal aid. Removing race and ethnicity data could also make it harder to measure disparities affecting Black Americans and other racial groups.
The Constitution’s 14th Amendment says congressional seats must be apportioned based on the “whole number of persons in each State,” not only citizens. Trump has long objected to undocumented immigrants being included in census totals used to distribute House seats.
During his first term, Trump tried to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census. The Supreme Court blocked that effort after finding that the administration’s stated justification was “contrived.” A separate attempt to exclude undocumented immigrants from the population totals used for congressional apportionment was also challenged in court.
The new proposal arrives as the administration continues a broader immigration crackdown and pushes states to share more information about undocumented residents.
For now, the Trump census proposal is not final. But if adopted, it could reshape who counts for political representation, federal funding and civil rights data, with consequences extending far beyond immigration policy.