Trump Seeks to Void Constitutional Requirement for Census to Count All Persons
Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct. --Article 1, Section 2, US Constitution
The Trump administration has signed off on a memorandum supporting barring undocumented immigrants from being counted for congressional apportionment next year.
According to the memo:
“For the purpose of the reapportionment of Representatives following the 2020 census, it is the policy of the United States to exclude from the apportionment base aliens who are not in a lawful immigration status . . . to the maximum extent feasible and consistent with the discretion delegated to the executive branch.”
Legal and census experts are saying such an order would be impossible to implement, either lawfully or practically. The ACLU has already announced its intention to seek a court injunction.
From the Washington Post:
“It’s patently unconstitutional,” said Thomas Wolf, senior counsel and Spitzer fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University’s School of Law. For apportionment, Section 2 of the 14th Amendment requires a count of all persons, he said.
“Persons means people. Everyone must be counted . . . regardless of race or ethnicity or citizenship status,” he said, adding that implementing what the president proposes “would be asking every American to disregard the plain text of the Constitution and ignore what their eyes tell them about what the law and the American Constitution is about. It’s another example of the Trump administration putting some ill-conceived notion of ideology or self-interest ahead of the country.”
In addition to congressional apportionment, data from the 2020 Census, which is underway, will be used to determine state redistricting and $1.5 trillion a year in federal funding.
Looks like they’re going full on with the racist crap this year.
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