"The proposal, which is part of a regulatory filing for the test, comes months after President Trump in the middle of a redistricting push for new voting maps that could help Republicans keep control of the U.S. House of Representatives put out a call on social media for a "new" census that would, for the first time in U.S. history, exclude millions of people living in the country without legal status."
"In Congress, a growing number of Republican lawmakers are backing similar controversial proposals to leave out some or all non-U.S. citizens from a set of census numbers used to determine each state's share of congressional seats and Electoral College votes. According to the 14th Amendment, those census apportionment counts must include the "whole number of persons in each state." And in federal court, multiple GOP-led states have filed lawsuits seeking to force the bureau to subtract residents without legal status and those with immigrant visas."
"Results from the 2026 test are not expected to be used to redistribute political representation. Instead, the test is designed to inform preparations for the next once-a-decade head count in 2030, which include a report on the planned question topics that is due to Congress in 2027. The planned questionnaire for the test comes from an annual Census Bureau survey that is much longer than recent forms for the national tally."
The 2026 field test for the 2030 census may include a question on U.S. citizenship status as proposed in a regulatory filing. The move follows calls for a "new" census aimed at excluding undocumented residents and aligns with growing Republican proposals to omit some noncitizens from apportionment counts. The 14th Amendment requires apportionment counts to include the "whole number of persons in each state." Multiple GOP-led states have filed lawsuits seeking to remove noncitizens from those totals, while Missouri seeks exclusion from all census counts affecting federal funding. The 2026 test will inform 2030 preparations and uses a longer questionnaire drawn from the American Community Survey.
Read at www.npr.org
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