Overview

• On Aug. 7, President Trump ordered the Commerce Department to start planning a mid-decade census that would exclude undocumented immigrants from apportionment counts.
• Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has publicly affirmed that the Census Bureau must count “each whole person” and lacks authority to omit noncitizens without new legislation.
• Legal scholars warn that the Fourteenth Amendment’s “whole number of persons” clause bars exclusion and that past court decisions defeated similar executive changes.
• Analysts estimate a redo would cost about $15 billion, pose major logistical hurdles and face immediate legal challenges.
• Experts say excluding undocumented residents could shift House seats and federal funding away from states with large noncitizen populations