The Trump administration is seeking to ensure the 2030 census count does not include illegal aliens, in a move that may be difficult for Democrats to overturn even if they retake the presidency in 2028.
The administration recently added a proposed rule to the Federal Register that would modify who is officially counted in the census. The rule would remove illegal aliens from the census count, as well as potentially “…those whose legal status is ‘less durable and indefinite’ than a green card.” Because the census count determines how much representation a state gets in Congress, this move would have a heavy impact on certain blue states with sanctuary laws, such as California.
Liberal activists have fretted that the shift will be impossible to overturn in time for the next census. According to Jay Young, a senior policy director at the liberal advocacy group Common Cause, “Even if the Democrats took over both chambers of Congress and the presidency, and they wanted to change everything that President Trump had done before, they wouldn’t have time to fix a lot of this stuff.”
In addition, Trump administration officials are proposing to stop asking for people’s ethnicity and race on the census, and to ban an additional question regarding sexual orientation. While it is obviously important to have accurate information regarding the United States’s demographic balance, liberals’ desire for a permanent affirmative action and Voting Rights Act regime undoubtedly influenced the administration’s decision-making process on this issue.
Republicans have long accused Democrats of seeking to import a permanent illegal Latino underclass that will grant them a lock on electoral power. Prior to President Donald J. Trump’s 2016 campaign, we were treated to endless articles on how the GOP was a dying white man’s party, and predictions about how the nation’s changing demographics would permanently lock Republicans out of power. These predictions turned out to be patently false, and hopefully they stay that way, provided we ensure that this country’s representation is determined by American citizens.
