President Joe Biden has ordered illegal immigrants to be counted in the U.S. Census. Former President Trump fought to exclude illegal aliens from the census count, which is used for the purpose of apportioning seats in the U.S House of Representatives for all 50 states, and thus the number of Electoral College electors.
"The Secretary [of Commerce] shall report the tabulation of total population by state that reflects the whole number of persons whose usual residence was in each state as of the designated census date in section 141(a) of title 13, United States Code, without regard to immigration status," the order states.
"The Fourteenth Amendment apportions seats in the House of Representatives 'among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State,'" the order argues.
The Fourteenth Amendment was passed after the Civil War for the purposes of recognizing former slaves, not illegal aliens.
In July 2020, Trump defended one of his executive orders that excluded illegal aliens from the Census during a speech in the Rose Garden.
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"Today’s action to exclude illegal aliens from the apportionment base reflects a better understanding of the Constitution and is consistent with the principles of our representative democracy," Trump said. "My Administration will not support giving congressional representation to aliens who enter or remain in the country unlawfully, because doing so would create perverse incentives and undermine our system of government. Just as we do not give political power to people who are here temporarily, we should not give political power to people who should not be here at all."
Biden's executive order signed Wednesday revoked two Trump-era orders seeking to exclude illegal aliens from the decennial count. The Census was challenged in the courts, and the Trump administration failed to meet an end-of-year deadline to complete the count.
Illegal aliens have been included in previous counts and are reflected in the current apportionment of House seats in Congress and electors in the electoral college. The Center for Immigration Studies analyzed the impact of excluding illegal immigrants and their children from the census and reapportioning House seats accordingly. The result was a net loss of House seats for Democrats and a net gain of electors for Republicans.
No wonder President Biden reversed this on his first day in office.
