The Trump administration has submitted a proposal to exclude certain categories of legal and undocumented immigrants from the US census count, which is used to determine the allocation of US House seats. The proposal, released by the Department of Commerce on September 9, 2026, states that US citizens and lawful permanent residents would be included in the census, while foreign nationals with temporary legal status and undocumented immigrants would be excluded.
The proposal also suggests removing certain questions regarding race and ethnicity from the census questionnaire, citing doubts about their meaning and usefulness. The Census Bureau argues that limiting these questions could increase participation in the census, which occurs every ten years, and improve the accuracy of population counts.
The proposal marks a significant shift from historical practices, as the 1790 Census Act mandated counting anyone with a usual place of abode in the US, regardless of citizenship. Additionally, the proposal includes measures to verify citizenship status by cross-referencing census responses with government records from agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security and the Treasury.
In the past, President Trump attempted to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census, but this was blocked by the Supreme Court in 2019. Critics of the current proposal express concerns that it could discourage participation in the census and impact the allocation of federal resources, as census data is used to distribute over $2.8 trillion in federal funding.
Demographer William Frey from the Brookings Institution stated that the proposal could alter perceptions of who is considered American and may have a chilling effect on census participation. The Justice Department has warned that states could lose significant welfare funding if they do not report undocumented immigrants known to state agencies. The US Census Bureau has not commented on the proposal.