The Trump administration is including a citizenship question as part of a test survey as preparations begin for the 2030 U.S. Census. The stated goal is to end the practice of counting undocumented immigrants for census purposes, which affects Electoral College apportionment, congressional representation, and the distribution of trillions of dollars in federal funding.
The field test is being conducted in Huntsville, Alabama, and Spartanburg, South Carolina, Newsmax reported.
The test uses questions from the American Community Survey, rather than questions used on recent decennial census forms.
Among the questions included is one asking whether a person is a citizen of the United States. Citizenship questions have not appeared on the census questionnaire for approximately 75 years.
The U.S. Census Bureau has historically interpreted the 14th Amendment’s requirement to count “the whole number of persons in each state” as including all residents, regardless of immigration status.
Officials said the test is designed to improve population counts that were underrepresented in the 2020 census and to refine methods planned for 2030.
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The test also uses United States Postal Service employees to perform duties traditionally handled by census workers, Newsmax reported.
The survey was originally planned for six locations, but the administration announced this week that four sites were dropped, including Colorado Springs, western North Carolina, western Texas, and tribal lands in Arizona.
During his first term, President Donald Trump sought to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census, an effort blocked by the Supreme Court.
Trump also signed executive orders directing the collection of citizenship data and seeking to exclude people living in the country illegally from apportionment counts.
Those orders were later rescinded by former President Joe Biden before the census results were released.
Democrats on the House Oversight Committee criticized the move in a post on Thursday.
“The census is meant to count all people living in the United States, not just citizens,” the lawmakers said.
They added that including a citizenship question could reduce representation and federal resources for certain communities.
Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway announced in January that the state, along with several individual plaintiffs, has filed suit against the U.S. Department of Commerce and the Census Bureau seeking to end the counting of illegal aliens in the census and force a recount of the 2020 Census and 2021 congressional apportionment.
In a press release, Hanaway described the lawsuit as a major constitutional challenge to how federal representation is calculated.
“To defend our fundamental right to representation in government, Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway filed the most significant election lawsuit in a generation,” the release stated. “This first-in-the-nation suit was filed against the United States Department of Commerce and the Census Bureau for unconstitutionally allowing illegal aliens to commandeer the path to the White House and compromise our elections.”
“The State of Missouri and its voters can no longer ignore the ongoing denial of their right to self-government and fair representation,” Hanaway said. “United States citizens and lawful permanent residents have a right to representation, unlike illegal aliens and temporary visa holders. In America, the People, the members of the social compact, are the only legitimate source of the government’s power. We are taking a stand against those who are cheating our system.”
The lawsuit argues that the current policy of counting illegal aliens in census tabulations is unlawful and unconstitutional. Hanaway is asking the court to order a recount of the 2020 Census and prohibit the inclusion of illegal aliens in future census apportionments.
The 96-page complaint names the U.S. Department of Commerce, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, the U.S. Census Bureau, and Acting Census Bureau Director George Cook as defendants.
“Attorney General Hanaway will not allow open border states like California, New York, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Maryland to steal an estimated 11 congressional seats, 11 electoral votes, and billions of dollars in funding,” the release said.
