In recent weeks, President Trump has indicated that he wants the US Census Bureau to start work on a “new” census that would explicitly exclude people living in the country without legal status, including those who are undocumented or living in the country without proper authorization. Changing who gets counted in the census has real consequences. The census determines how many seats each state gets in Congress and how many Electoral College votes they have in presidential elections. It also affects the distribution of billions of federal dollars for schools, roads, health care, and countless other vital programs.
The census is mandated by the US Constitution, which explicitly states that it should be conducted every 10 years and count “the whole number of persons in each State,” as per the 14th Amendment. For more than 150 years, the US Census Bureau has followed these instructions. Deviating from these guidelines now to exclude the roughly 11 million US residents without legal status would hurt communities nationwide.
How Census data are used
The Census Bureau faces many challenges trying to count the roughly 340 million people living in the country. Natural disasters, declining survey response rates, language barriers, political pressures, budgetary uncertainty, and other issues all throw up obstacles to this massive undertaking.
Despite these challenges, the 2020 Census was remarkably accurate, cost $13.7 billion, and came in under budget. The bureau hired around 288,000 temporary employees to help collect the data, enough workers to show up in national jobs data. Planning for the 2030 census started in 2019, and the bureau worked halfway through 2022 to complete their analysis of the 2020 Census.
Once collected and analyzed, decennial census data are used to help government agencies, businesses, and community groups allocate resources and plan for the future in several ways. Omitting people without legal status from the census could have profound effects across the country because of the following uses:
Apportionment. The constitution mandates that census data are to be used to apportion members of Congress and determine Electoral College vote shares. In 2020, the Pew Research Center found that removing unauthorized immigrants from the 2020 Census would result in California, Florida, and Texas—the country’s most populous states—having one fewer seat in the House while Alabama, Minnesota, and Ohio would each gain a seat. Although unauthorized immigrants are not eligible to vote, these changes would affect population counts and shift votes in the Electoral College accordingly.
Federal spending. The census is used to disburse trillions of dollars through programs and services across the country. In 2023, the Census Bureau reported (PDF) that census data were used to distribute more than $2.8 trillion in funds across 353 programs and policies in fiscal year 2021. Many of these dollars are disbursed based on state population, meaning states where people without legal status account for a larger share of the total population may feel greater effects than if people with legal status were counted. Comparing Pew Research Center estimates of unauthorized immigrants in each state to census estimates of state populations, we see that Nevada (6.0 percent), Texas (5.5 percent), and Florida (5.1 percent) have the highest shares of unauthorized immigrants and may see the largest funding cuts depending on specific program and funding rules.
Sources: Estimates of the unauthorized population in 2022 are from the Pew Research Center. Population estimates are from 2022 and published by the US Census Bureau.
Notes: Pew estimates there are fewer than 5,000 unauthorized immigrants in Montana and Vermont. For purposes of this analysis, we assume that number is equal to 5,000 people.
State and local programs. States and localities use decennial data for an array of programs, including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, Community Development Block Grants, and the National School Lunch Program. Removing people without legal status from these counts would mean less funding for these programs, even though benefit receipt can depend on a person’s legal status. Census data are especially important for community-planning purposes by local governments, including projections of housing needs, local mass transit demand, and housing construction.
Private-sector companies. Decennial census data are also used as a strategic toolkit for private businesses. Whether opening a new store, optimizing operations, or attracting investment, businesses across the country use the census and other census data products to make data-informed decisions.
Unless blocked by Congress or the courts, the administration’s desire to omit people living in the country without legal status from the census, hundreds of small and large federal programs, state- and local-level services, and business decisions in the private sector will all be affected. The question of whom to count and how is not just academic—it carries serious legal implications and, importantly, affects people and communities.
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