Trump’s Census Push To Exclude Illegal Immigrants Would Restore Fairness To Elections

By Mike Gonzalez | Commentary, The Daily Signal

President Donald Trump is correct in seeking to exclude illegal immigrants from being counted in the census.

Census numbers determine the apportionment of congressional seats and spending. The illegal immigrant population should not be here in the first place, so it should have zero effect on seats or spending.

But Trump must go further and finally fix the census, which the Left has used for years to thwart the assimilation needed to handle the high number of foreign-born residents. There are more than 50 million such residents in the United States, accounting for 15.6% of the population, handily beating the record of 14.8% set in 1890.

Unbeknownst to most people, the administration has already done a great deal of good to stop the census from balkanizing the country by quietly shuttering the Census Bureau’s National Advisory Committee on Racial, Ethnic, and Other Populations in February. Now it must follow through and eliminate racial and ethnic categories such as Hispanic and Asian American.

Make no mistake: These categories exist to give the Left the same thing illegal immigrants should not receive; namely, funding and political power.

These reforms would return the census to its original, neutral purpose as intended by the Founding Fathers.

Not counting illegal immigrants would help not just apportionment, but also redistricting, which is very different and has been very much in the news lately. Counting illegal immigrants dilutes the voting power of citizens. Think of two districts with equal populations—the one with more illegal residents has more power than the other.

Counting illegal immigrants also gives blue electoral districts an unfair advantage. As Peter Kirsanow, the chairman of the Commission on Civil Rights, explained last year, districts with higher illegal populations tend to vote blue.

Not counting illegal immigrants would reduce the size of districts with high numbers and lead to redrawing better electoral maps. Counting illegal residents gave blue states a net gain of 14 seats after the 2020 census, Kirsanow said. This is on top of 2020’s overcounting in blue states and undercounting in red states, which the Census Bureau has already admitted.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT THE DAILY SIGNAL

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