A three-judge panel unanimously ruled President Donald Trump’s order to exclude undocumented immigrants from the census for purposes of determining congressional representation is unlawful. Trump had ordered that Congress not include undocumented immigrants in its counts when determining congressional districts. The Commerce Dept. is in charge of the Census.
Not including the approximately 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. would dramatically alter the number of seats in the House of Representatives and reduce federal funds sent back to some states.
The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, according to The Hill, on Thursday ruled “that Trump’s executive memorandum violates the executive branch’s ‘constitutional responsibility to count the whole number of persons in each State and to apportion members of the House of Representatives among the States according to their respective numbers.'”
The panel includes two Republican-appointed judges.
On July 21 Trump issued an order falsely claiming the “Constitution does not specifically define which persons must be included in the apportionment base.”
“Although the Constitution requires the ‘persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed,’ to be enumerated in the census, that requirement has never been understood to include in the apportionment base every individual physically present within a State’s boundaries at the time of the census,” the order wrongly claimed.
Image: Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead via Flickr