Donald Trump has tried this before. During his first term of office, Trump demanded a new census that would not count immigrants who are illegal in the country.
Trump’s second term fails, so the president trotted his dog whistle against brown people by demanding a new census.
Trump posted on Truth Social:
I have instructed our Ministry of Commerce to immediately start working on a new and highly accurate census based on modern facts and figures and, more importantly, the use of the results and information obtained from the 2024 presidential election. People who are illegal in our country will not be counted in the census. Thank you for your attention for this issue!
Years of planning and staff are needed to do a new census. Trump can’t order one and it looks like magic.
Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) pointed to the bigger problem:
This is completely unconstitutional. The Constitution is obliged every ten years a census that every person in the country has, regardless of their citizenship status. When Trump tried to do this in 2020, the courts rejected it downright.
Pew Research looked at what a new census that does not count people in the country would look illegally and how this would influence the elections, and their answer was that the minimal impact would have.
