The article has been automatically translated into English by Google Translate from Russian and has not been edited.
Переклад цього матеріалу українською мовою з російської було автоматично здійснено сервісом Google Translate, без подальшого редагування тексту.
Bu məqalə Google Translate servisi vasitəsi ilə avtomatik olaraq rus dilindən azərbaycan dilinə tərcümə olunmuşdur. Bundan sonra mətn redaktə edilməmişdir.
President Donald Trump announced on social media on August 7 that he had directed the Commerce Department to begin work on a new U.S. census. Illegal immigrants will be excluded from the population count, according to CNN.
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“I have directed our Commerce Department to begin work immediately on a new and highly accurate CENSUS based on current facts and figures and, importantly, using the results and information gathered during the 2024 Presidential Election,” Trump wrote on the Truth Social platform.
“People who are in our country illegally WILL NOT BE COUNTED IN THE CENSUS,” the president added.
Trump’s proposal marks a sharp departure from long-standing census practices, which have historically counted all residents regardless of their immigration status.
On the subject: In 2025, the net migration to the US will be negative for the first time in 50 years
The announcement comes amid growing pressure from the White House on Republican-run states to redraw their congressional district maps to strengthen the GOP’s hand in the 2026 congressional elections.
It is unclear from Trump’s post whether he is referring to changes to the rules for conducting the 2030 census or to conducting an additional count before that date.
The Constitution requires a national census every 10 years to determine representation in Congress. The census website says it is “designed to enumerate every inhabitant of the United States.” The Fourteenth Amendment requires a count of “the whole number of persons in each state.” Changes to the census could affect the balance of power in the states and the House of Representatives, which is determined by total population.
New count likely to lead to legal battles
Conducting an early census could be politically advantageous for the president, as projections show that population changes over the next decade could shift up to twelve House seats from Democratic or swing states to Republican ones.
But Trump cannot unilaterally order a new census to redistribute seats, according to Jeffrey Weiss, a professor at New York Law School who specializes in districts and the census.
While Congress could theoretically authorize a new census, Weiss noted that doing so would trigger a major legal challenge. Such a count, which requires far more detailed data than the Census Bureau provides in its other surveys, would be a massive undertaking.
Preparations for the 2030 census began in 2019. Just a month ago, the bureau released its initial plan for the next census, noting that tests to refine the process are planned for 2026 and 2028.
“The decennial census is the second largest project the federal government has undertaken since the war effort,” Weiss said.
It also remains unclear what exactly Trump means when he talks about using the 2024 presidential election results or conducting the count based on “current facts and figures.”
“It’s typical of Trump to throw something out there without thinking it through, without any practical or logical basis, and without any details,” Weiss said. “You can’t have a census based on the results of a presidential election, and you can’t have a census based on the results of a political campaign.”
Weiss said Census Bureau experts “don’t need Trump’s advice” on how to use “modern facts and figures.”
Trump revives first-term initiative
Earlier in his first term, Trump sought to change the 2020 census, repeatedly saying he would seek to include a citizenship question for the first time since 1950, despite the Supreme Court blocking the effort, which Trump said was necessary to better comply with federal voting rights laws.
At the time, critics argued that adding such a question would undercount minorities because it would discourage even legal residents or naturalized citizens from filling out the survey, since the census is also used to determine funding for a number of government programs.
Trump then abandoned his idea, instead ordering government agencies to provide records that could determine the population without directly interviewing census takers.
Trump is not the first Republican to call for an updated census in recent weeks.
Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene recently introduced a bill that would, among other things, conduct a new census that would count only citizens and then redistribute seats in Congress based on the results.
And last month, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said he spoke with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who oversees the census, and explained that he believed Florida should have gained at least two additional seats in the 2020 census, rather than the one it received.
“They said they were going to redo the count by 2026,” DeSantis said. “Now they’re going to have to do it relatively soon because it takes time to draw the maps and to complete the process. But I think Texas and Florida should definitely get at least one more seat.”
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DeSantis implied that former Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo, who led the Commerce Department in the Biden administration, was responsible for her state retaining both of its seats while Florida only gained one. But Trump left office in January 2021, so it was his administration, not Biden’s, that conducted the 2020 census.
Trump’s attempt to change the census is not the first time he has taken action to cast doubt on the integrity of government reporting. Last week, he fired Dr. Erica McEntuffer, the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, after accusing her, without evidence, of manipulating monthly employment reports “for political purposes.”
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