A freshman Republican has introduced legislation in the House of Representatives to mandate a citizens-only U.S. census, following a demand from President Donald Trump. But legal scholars say the Constitution is clear: it requires counting all persons, including U.S. citizens, legal residents, and undocumented immigrants.

U.S. Rep. Randy Fine filed the “Correct the Count Act” without any co-sponsors.

After posting a screenshot of Trump’s demand, Congressman Fine wrote: “President Trump, I couldn’t agree more. That’s why I introduced the Correct the Count Act to make this LAW! Only AMERICANS can vote in elections, and illegals should not inflate blue states’ populations to give them underserved Congressmen. Florida is getting the shaft, and it is time for that to end! Stop the Steal!”

The Census and the ability to vote are unrelated.

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“I have instructed our Department of Commerce to immediately begin work on a new and highly accurate CENSUS based on modern day facts and figures and, importantly, using the results and information gained from the Presidential Election of 2024,” Trump wrote on Thursday morning, suggesting no legislation is necessary. “People who are in our Country illegally WILL NOT BE COUNTED IN THE CENSUS. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

In a statement to The Hill, Fine wrote that his bill would create “a snap census of Americans only, just as the President called for. Between the Great Deportation and economic refugees fleeing blue states, the 2020 Census is no longer valid.”

Congressman Fine’s bill does not detail how the new Census would be paid for.

While there is no accurate count of undocumented immigrants, a Department of Homeland Security estimate places the total number at 10.9 million as of 2022. There is not a breakdown of all 50 states, but it does provide estimates of the “Unauthorized Immigrant Population” for the top states, including California (2.6 million), Texas (2.06 million), Florida (590,000), New Jersey (490,000), and Illinois (420,000).

Republicans believe more undocumented immigrants reside in blue states than in red states.

Absent court orders, it is extremely rare for a state, outside of the census window, to redistrict with the direct goal of providing more seats to a particular party, and the United States has never conducted a decennial census officially excluding undocumented immigrants.

The Fourteenth Amendment states that “the whole number of persons in each State” is to be counted.

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Citing President Donald Trump’s “really extreme policies on both trade and immigration,” and particularly his tariffs, Nobel Prize–winning economist Paul Krugman, one of the nation’s most prominent economic voices, is warning that the U.S. could soon face “stagflation”—a toxic mix of high inflation, rising unemployment, and stagnant demand.

“It’s Beginning to Smell a Lot Like Stagflation,” Krugman wrote on Friday. Noting that “it’s all about Trumponomics,” he warned that “the data really are looking increasingly stagflationary.”

Calling one report “quite grim on both inflation and jobs,” Krugman, an economics professor, warns that “just around the corner,” Americans could be in for a “nasty shock” of “inflation of 4 percent or more,” which is about a 50 percent increase from where inflation is right now.

Krugman also notes that not only are tariffs inflationary, Trump’s “war on immigrants is also inflationary, because it is choking off production in industries that rely heavily on foreign-born workers.” He points to stories of no one available to pick crops, which then rot in fields, and “construction projects hobbled by ICE raids and a climate of fear.”

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On Friday, President Trump appeared to issue a warning to the judiciary not to overturn his tariffs, a possibility given that one court has deemed them unlawful and an appeals court seemed skeptical that the basis for them, a “national emergency,” was valid. Trump said if they did it would lead to “1929 all over again,” a reference to the Great Depression.

Krugman agrees that the President’s tariffs may indeed be unlawful (as do many legal scholars) but he doubts they will be overturned.

“I wouldn’t get my hopes up,” he says of the courts overturning the tariffs. “And if the tariffs are here to stay, we can expect them to be passed on to buyers.”

Krugman is far from alone in his warning.

“America is showing new signs of stagflation,” reported Axios last week.

“Wall Street strategists are sounding alarms that the US economy is drifting toward stagflation as the impact of trade tariffs start to show up,” Bloomberg News reported on Thursday.

“The economy looks like it’s moving closer to a dreaded stagflationary scenario,” reported Business Insider.

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President Donald Trump warned that if federal judges overturn his tariffs—deemed unlawful by some experts—it could trigger a massive depression, a message some observers saw as both a warning to the judiciary and a rallying cry to his base.

“Tariffs are having a huge positive impact on the Stock Market,” President Trump claimed on Truth Social on Friday—a statement some experts may dispute.

“If a Radical Left Court ruled against us at this late date, in an attempt to bring down or disturb the largest amount of money, wealth creation and influence the U.S.A. has ever seen, it would be impossible to ever recover, or pay back, these massive sums of money and honor,” he noted.

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“It would be 1929 all over again, a GREAT DEPRESSION! If they were going to rule against the wealth, strength, and power of America, they should have done so LONG AGO, at the beginning of the case, where our entire Country, while never having a chance at this kind of GREATNESS again, would not have been put in 1929 style jeopardy,” the President said, echoing remarks he made during some of the investigations and prosecutions against him.

“There is no way America could recover from such a judicial tragedy, but I know our Court System better than anyone, there is no one in history that has gone through the trials, tribulations and uncertainties such as I, and absolutely terrible, but also amazingly beautiful, things can happen. Our Country deserves SUCCESS AND GREATNESS, NOT TURMOIL, FAILURE, AND DISGRACE. GOD BLESS AMERICA!”

The President’s remarks come just one day after more of his tariffs went into effect, and some of the nation’s top manufacturers and retailers announced they would be raising prices as a result.

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“New tariffs snap into effect, raising import taxes to highest level since Great Depression,” was the headline at NBC News at 12:01 AM Thursday, the moment the tariffs officially hit.

“Executives from companies like Adidas, Stanley Black & Decker and Procter & Gamble have told investors that they plan to or have already passed on some tariff costs to customers,” The New York Times reported. “Walmart and the toymakers Mattel and Hasbro had already issued similar warnings that tariffs were likely to lead to higher costs for consumers.”

As for Trump’s judicial warning, CNN noted on Friday that the “US Court of International Trade in May ruled that Trump overstepped his legal authority to impose many of his sweeping tariffs on foreign goods. Last week, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit heard the Trump administration’s appeal, and the panel of 11 judges voiced skepticism that the law gave Trump power to impose tariffs in the aggressive manner that his administration has unleashed them.”

The case is expected to end up at the Supreme Court.

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