Supreme Court skeptical of Trump’s plan to exclude undocumented immigrants from census



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The United States Supreme Court appeared reluctant on Monday to approve President Donald Trump’s plan to exclude undocumented immigrants from the census figures that are used to calculate each state’s representation in Congress and the share of billions of dollars coming from a multitude of federal programs.

But after 90 minutes of oral argument, it was unclear exactly how the court would deal with the matter as the Census Bureau admits it does not yet have a clue how many people are excluded or when it will have the answer. . The judges seemed reluctant to act immediately to block the plan.

“Career experts at the Census Bureau have confirmed with me that they still don’t know, even approximately, how many illegal aliens they will be able to identify, let alone how their number and geographic concentration may affect the distribution,” he said. said Jeffrey Wall, American Acting. solicitor general.

Lawyers for states opposed to the plan and groups affected by it told judges it would displace money and political power from states with large immigrant populations and violate the Constitution and federal law.

The Constitution requires a census every 10 years, and the results determine how many members of Congress each state obtains in the House of Representatives. The data is also used to calculate a local government’s share of $ 1.5 trillion in funds under many federal programs.

In July, Trump issued a note saying that undocumented people should not be included in the final tally. As part of its plan, the Census Bureau would report two sets of numbers to the White House – one including everyone counted and another allowing it to leave out undocumented immigrants. The president could then report the smaller number to Congress for use in the new split.

The president’s memorandum said that states with policies “which encourage illegal aliens to enter this country and federal efforts to enforce immigration laws passed by Congress should not be rewarded with greater representation in the House of Representatives “.

According to an analysis by the Pew Research Center, California, Florida and Texas would each lose one seat in the House, and Alabama, Minnesota and Ohio would each retain one seat they would otherwise lose due to the population change. Other predictions show that Arizona also loses a seat and Montana wins one.

States would lose an equal number of Electoral College votes, which are based on the size of their delegations to the United States House.

“The memorandum treats the counting of people as an undisclosed reward to states that host undocumented immigrants, even though our laws treat counting for dispatch as an investigation, not giving or withholding a reward,” he said. New York Solicitor General Barbara Underwood said. the tribunal.

Wall said federal law gives the president the power to direct how the census is conducted and that the term in the Constitution, which states that the census must count “the total number of people in each state”, has generally been understood to mean usual residents.

But several members of the court, including some Tory judges, appeared to doubt the president’s power to alter census results.

“If an undocumented person has been in the country for, say, 20 years, even illegally, why wouldn’t such a person have a permanent residence?” asked Amy Coney Barrett, the new justice.

However, the court struggled to know what to do. Some judges have suggested waiting until the Census Bureau actually sends the numbers to the White House or the President gives Congress the demographics to use in calculating how many seats each state gets in the House.

Wall advised to wait. “Based on what I understand from the Census Bureau, there is a real prospect that the numbers will not affect the distribution,” he said.

The court expedited the case in order to render a decision before the president was required to submit the census report to Congress in early January.



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