Federal judges block Trump census order on undocumented immigrants
Source: Politico
A three-judge panel in New York is blocking President Donald Trump from excluding undocumented immigrants from the census count for the purpose of congressional reapportionment.
The federal judges ruled Thursday that excluding the immigrants would violate both the 14th Amendment, which requires the number of House seats each state is allotted to be based on counting the whole number of persons in each State, and federal law, which permits the Commerce secretary to include only census figures in his report to the president.
In a July 21 memorandum, Trump instructed Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and the Census Bureau to exclude undocumented immigrants from the apportionment counts. Because there is no citizenship question on the 2020 census, the bureau is using other sources of data, like state databases, to calculate the number of undocumented immigrants.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed suit against the administration, one of several challenging Trumps memo. The ACLU argued that the change could cause some states to lose seats in Congress if undocumented immigrants werent included.
Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/10/court-blocks-trump-census-order-on-undocumented-immigrants-412052