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President Donald Trump on Thursday directed the Commerce Department to begin work on a new census that would remove immigrants in the United States illegally from the headcount determining political power and federal spending.
The census is based on “using modern facts and numbers and, importantly, the results and information obtained from the 2024 presidential election,” the Republican president said on his social media platform.
Experts said it is unclear what Trump is looking for, whether it is a change in the 2030 census or a change in the mid-term census, if so, it will be used for mid-term allocation, a process of splitting Congressional seats between states based on population numbers.
Here are some answers to the questions raised by Thursday’s post:
Can Trump change the census?
Experts say that conducting a medium-term census is extremely difficult, if not impossible.
Changes to the implementation of the US Census will require changes to the Census Act and approval from Congress, and will likely be a supervisor’s responsibility and a fierce battle.
The federal law governing the census allows for a mid-term head number, such as distribution of federal funds, but cannot be used for allocation or rezoning, and must be made in years that ends at 5. The federal court has repeatedly upheld that interpretation, but the Supreme Court has blocked recent efforts to change it on procedural basis rather than legal basis.
“He cannot unilaterally order a new census. The census is in compliance with the law, not to mention the constitution,” said Terry Anne Lowenthal, a former Congressional staff member who consults about the issue of the census.
Next is the logistics issue. The former census was the largest non-military act by the federal government, taking advantage of the temporary workforce of hundreds of thousands of census recipients. It can take up to 10 years.
“This isn’t something you can do overnight,” said Jeffrey Wies, a law professor in New York, who is a census and district expert. “To put all the pieces together would be a huge challenge, if not impossible.”
Has this been done before?
No mid-term census has been conducted before.
In the 1970s, there was an interest in developing data from the mid-decade for more accurate and continuous information about American life, and the mid-century census was considered. But the funds from Congress never arrived, Margo Anderson, an Emerita professor at the University of Wisconsin University of Milwaukee, wrote extensively about the history of the census.
Decades later, these hopes for ongoing data will develop into the American Community Survey, an annual survey of American life based on responses from 3.5 million households.
In his first term as a Republican, he failed to try and add citizenship questions to the 2020 census form, signing an order that illegally excludes people from distribution numbers and requires the collection of citizenship data through administrative records.
The attempt was blocked by the Supreme Court, and both orders were revoked when Democratic President Joe Biden arrived at the White House in January 2021, when 2020 census figures were released by the Census Bureau.
Repeated attempts guarantee legal challenges.
“The census is not just a head number. It is intended to reflect America – determine how important resources are allocated as some people prefer and how important resources are allocated.” “No one should be wiped out of it. We won’t hesitate to return to court to protect all community representatives.”
What is the census used for?
In addition to being accustomed to interstate parliamentary seats and redrawing political district divisions, the numbers derived from the former annual census are used to derive a $2.8 trillion distribution of government spending annually.
Federal funds are distributed to state and local governments, nonprofits, businesses and households, and pay for healthcare, education, school lunch programs, childcare, food assistance programs, and highway construction.
Why does Trump want to change the census?
Republican constituency experts write that using citizen vote age populations instead of the total population with the aim of redrawing Congress and legislative districts could be advantageous for Republicans and non-Hispanic whites.
Critics believe the writings of Republican constituency expert Tom Hoferer were inspired by the first Trump administration’s attempts to limit allocations and guided laws introduced by Republican lawmakers this year. Trump was open about his intention to increase the number of Republican seats in Congress and maintain a GOP majority in next year’s midterm elections.
Rezoning usually occurs once every 10 years after the census, but Trump has once again put pressure on Texas Republicans to rezone, claiming that they are “entitled” to five additional Republican seats. Trump’s team is also engaged in similar rezoning debates in other GOP-controlled states, including Missouri and Indiana.
Some critics see the effort as part of Trump’s broader efforts to control the federal statistical system, which is considered the world’s gold standard.
Last Friday, Trump fired Erica Mantelfer, director of the Bureau of Statistics at the Bureau of Labor Statistics after it was shown that standard revisions to its monthly employment reports added 258,000 fewer jobs in May and June than previously reported. The revision suggests that employment will weaken badly under Trump and undermine claims of an economic boom.
“Trump is basically destroying the federal statistics system,” Anderson said. “He wants numbers that support his political achievements, as he sees.”
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