President Trump is pushing to remove illegal aliens from the U.S. Census count, which would affect the allocation of House seats and Electoral College votes.
The Census is used to apportion congressional districts and electoral votes among the states. Including illegal aliens in the count currently gives states with large illegal immigrant populations—such as California and New York—extra representation in Congress and more influence in presidential elections, even though non-citizens cannot legally vote.
Removing illegal aliens from the apportionment base would base representation strictly on the number of American citizens and legal residents. This would likely reduce the number of House seats in high-illegal-immigration states and shift political power toward states with higher proportions of citizens.
Supporters argue this change restores the original constitutional principle that representation should reflect the citizen population, prevents states from benefiting politically from encouraging illegal immigration, and ensures fairer allocation of federal resources and electoral influence.
