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States sue Trump over order to exclude undocumented immigrants from U.S. House seat counts

Published 07/24/2020, 06:00 PM
Updated 07/24/2020, 09:10 PM
© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Trump speaks at coronavirus response task force briefing at the White House in Washington

© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Trump speaks at coronavirus response task force briefing at the White House in Washington

By Jonathan Stempel

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A coalition of 35 U.S. states, cities and counties sued President Donald Trump on Friday over his directive not to count undocumented immigrants when apportioning seats for the House of Representatives, a move that critics have said is designed to help Republicans.

Trump's plan, announced on Tuesday, could exclude several million people when determining how to apportion the 435 House seats, starting with the 2022 midterm elections. It could cause a few House seats to shift from Democratic-leaning states with large immigrant populations to Republican-leaning states.

The apportionment is also a basis for determining electoral votes for the 2024 and 2028 presidential elections.

Among the mostly Democratic-leaning plaintiffs are New York state, the most populous plaintiff, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia and San Francisco.

The White House declined to comment.

In the complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan, the plaintiffs called Trump's plan unconstitutional because everyone in the country must be counted regardless of their legal status.

They said this has been true since slavery was abolished in the 1860s, and that the Constitution requires a count based on the "whole number of persons" in each state, as counted in each decennial U.S. census.

The census is also a basis for allocating federal funds, and the plaintiffs said Trump's directive could hurt communities by deterring immigrants from responding to the census now under way.

In announcing the directive, Trump said "person" had "never been understood to include ... every individual physically present within a state's boundaries."

Alleged efforts to conceal the number of undocumented immigrants, he said, were "part of a broader left-wing effort" to erode the rights of American citizens, "and I will not stand for it."

© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Trump speaks at coronavirus response task force briefing at the White House in Washington

Trump has made curbing legal and illegal immigration a focus of his presidency. He is seeking reelection and has trailed Democrat Joe Biden in some recent polls.

Latest comments

Law and Order is coming to these corrupt states, cities, towns, governor's and mayor's
WTH, have to be a citizen to vote. Another way for our Democrats to waste our tax dollars
DEM sold out America to buy votes.
*states sue trump to allow voter fraud so Biden will have chance of winning presidency
This has NOTHING to do with voter fraud in the presidential election, since we all know that only citizens can vote. You're conflating apportionment of House seats with votes to choose the president. Two totally different things.
Just to clear this up. Undpcumented immigrant means someone who entered the country illegally. Why would they be represented in a system meant to destributes representatives on a basis of population of citizens??
because its supposed to count every living person in the united states citizens or not
this is not really how it is interpreted....it means citizens and resident aliens ...undocumented means illegal and does not count.
The party of criminals knows they have a chance in h ell without the illegal vote.
Don't*
the Democrats would still hold the house of representatives even without illegals counting into how districts are formed
Kilo Byte, it's not the 'far left'. It's a coalition of 35 states, counties, and cities. And it has nothing to do with "illegals voting" since we all know that only citizens can vote. It's more about the idea that the more populous a jurisdiction is, the more representation (and federal funds for resources and infrastructure) they need.
Yu’s on first....
The leftist is the shame of the nation
USA, the land of the free. it's so free that anyone can just go there and expect all the privileges and rights as their citizens.
At least we have a constitution in this country...
I think that is notmal think to do If he included undocumentd immigrants then it should become news
Why the big deal that undocumented immigrants are excluded from U.S. House seat counts if they don't have citizenship rights to vote anyway? If included in counts then it is a pro move for the communist left, and that is ILEGAL, like the undocumented immigrants status.
The left can always count on the dead and homeless to up their vote though...
As you should know, it's not about non-citizens voting or not, as they cannot vote. However, non-citizens living in the state still use resources and infrastructure, and therefore these states feel they should be included in representation when it comes to apportionment of House seats, and federal funding. Keep in mind that 'non-citizen' does not mean only 'illegals' but also includes people with legal Permanent Resident status and people on proper work visas and student visas, etc. Since it's the Federal government's responsibility to control who comes into the country, not the states, but the states have to provide local resources and infrastructure, I imagine that's why they feel their population needs to include counting these people.
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