President Donald Trump said he instructed the Department of Commerce to “immediately begin work on a new and highly accurate CENSUS.”
Trump said it will be “based on modern day facts and figures and, importantly, using the results and information gained from the Presidential Election of 2024,” adding, “People who are in our Country illegally WILL NOT BE COUNTED IN THE CENSUS.”
The president’s request contradicts the U.S. Census Bureau’s schedule mandated by the Constitution. Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution requires that a census be conducted every 10 years to apportion the number of seats in the House to each state by population. The census is also used to determine federal funding for states for services such as hospitals, healthcare, and schools.
The census has been conducted every 10 years since 1790. It was last conducted in 2020. A mid-decade census would be unprecedented and have a host of legal challenges.
The census counts all people living in the United States regardless of legal status. This includes U.S. citizens, noncitizen legal residents, noncitizen long-term visitors, and undocumented immigrants.
Noncitizens have never been excluded from the census.
The census is expensive to conduct, amounting to $13.7 billion in 2020. Omitting the constitutional concerns, the Commerce Department likely does not have a plan to secure the funding needed to execute the census as per Trump’s current request. A list of questions appearing on the census must also be approved by Congress two years beforehand.
The first Trump administration largely oversaw the last census in 2020. Following it, several Republican-led states, including Florida and Texas, gained congressional representation. However, the release of the census results was delayed until early 2021 under then-President Joe Biden due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Trump attempted to exclude some immigrants from the 2020 count, but the administration ultimately quit in its efforts after a Supreme Court loss and the COVID-19 pandemic-related delays pushed back the timing of the count.
A census is scheduled to be conducted again in 2030.
Preparing to conduct the census takes multiple years, and preparations for the next one are already underway. By April 1, or Census Day, all households will have received a census survey. Households are told to count all people living in the home on April 1. Collecting census data takes months.
In the 2020 census, all U.S. states, the District of Columbia, and territories reported that they collected data from more than 99% of U.S. households, with a net 0.35% of households being undercounted, according to the Pew Research Center. It is nearly impossible to conduct a perfect count.
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Trump’s wish comes as Texas Republicans are looking to vote on a new congressional map that would favor the GOP even more than the current map does.
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) said without evidence last month that the 2020 census was “flawed.” While Florida gained a congressional seat in 2020, DeSantis said the census undercounted Florida and that the state deserves another seat.
