Trump is right: The Census should not include illegal residents
He added, 'People who are in our Country illegally WILL NOT BE COUNTED IN THE CENSUS.'
It is not clear what impact 'modern day facts and figures' would have on the nation's headcount, but Trump's determination to exclude undocumented persons from the count will change the numbers significantly.
You can bet there will be a great deal of attention paid to this proposal. Democrats who will howl that the shift is illegal, immoral, and probably racist.
But Trump is correct. It is clear the census needs drastic improvement and that undocumented people should not be included. The 2020 count was a mess, with even the Census Bureau's own research arm concluding eight states were over-counted and six were undercounted. The census took place during COVID, and most likely the pandemic took a toll on the efficiency and accuracy of the report.
The errors in the headcount are especially newsworthy today, in light of the skirmish taking place in Texas over redistricting. Democrat legislators there have fled to blue cities around the country to avoid having to vote on the new political map, which reportedly would hand Republicans in the state an additional five seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.
The fugitive Democrats are hiding mainly in Chicago, at the invitation of Illinois governor JB Pritzker (D), who is presumed to be contemplating a run for president in 2028. Like Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and other Democratic hopefuls, Pritzker evidently considers performance politics likely to enhance his chances.
Ironically, Pritzker presides over what National Review's Rich Lowry has described in a recent column as the most gerrymandered state in the union, citing the distorted configuration of District 13 as evidence.
Lowry points out that in 2022, Republican congressional candidates in Illinois won almost 44% of the popular vote but only secured 18 percent of the state's House seats. Illinois is not alone. California, too, has skewed political representation, with some 40 percent of votes in the most recent election going to Republicans but only 17 percent of the seats. Lowry says that if Texas Republicans pass their new map, the state will only be roughly as imbalanced as California.
Democrat officials in other states have threatened retaliation for Texas' maneuver, but in a number of big states, like California, Democrats have already pushed their advantage about as far as they can. The Republicans have been gaining control over state houses and legislatures in recent elections, which helps them force a remap. Republicans have 23 so-called 'trifectas', where they control both houses of state legislatures and the governors' mansions, as in Texas; Democrats have only 11.
Following Texas' lead, there is talk of a similar effort being considered in Nebraska and also in Indiana, where Vice President JD Vance recently met with Gov. Mike Braun (R) and Republican legislators to encourage the measure.
Redistricting is done usually once a decade in response to the Census. But the 2020 headcount was so flawed that some political leaders consider it appropriate to redo their maps mid-decade. Of the eight states that were overcounted, 6 lean left. Of the six that were undercounted, all but one lean right.
Some of the errors are significant; New York was overcounted, for example, by 3.4 percent, and Hawaii by nearly 7 percent. Ditto with the undercounts — they missed on Florida's population by 3.5 percent. Consequently, Republicans argue that they should have picked up more House seats, Electoral College votes and also won more federal funds.
Given the slim seven-seat margin that Republicans currently hold in the House, the mistakes in the 2020 census loom large, as does the fight currently underway in Texas. Looking to next year's midterm elections, redistricting could well change the balance of power. Normally the party that occupies the White House loses seats in the midterms; the Texas fight and others could prevent that, allowing the Trump agenda to roll forward.
Longer term, President Trump's desire to eliminate undocumented people from the census could have similar repercussions. It is inappropriate for the decennial headcount to include non-citizens; those people are not allowed to vote and by the same token should not have representation in Congress. Leading up to the 2020 count, Wilbur Ross, who was Commerce Secretary under then-President Trump took steps to make the change by adding a citizenship question to the census form, but he was blocked by the courts.
Opponents claimed the question would deter illegals from participating in the census, which could cost Democrat-run states House seats, Electoral College votes, and federal funding. It was a poor excuse, since the Census Bureau's American Community Survey, which annually asks some 3.5 million households questions about citizenship status, place of birth and year of arrival, scores about the same response in states with a high illegal population as those that do not.
Including undocumented people in the census incentivizes state officials to welcome people in the U.S. illegally. California, where high taxes and anti-business regulations have driven people and firms to flee the state, has been able to keep most of its House seats because it harbors more than 2 million non-citizens. This is wrong. Bad policies should be penalized, not rewarded.
The Census is established under Article 1, Section 2 of the Constitution which reads: 'Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers….' 'Indians' were not part of the tally at that time because they were 'not taxed' and therefore not considered legal citizens.
Trump is correct; we should follow that lead, and exclude people in the U.S. illegally.
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Los Angeles Times
19 minutes ago
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New York Post
19 minutes ago
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Boston Globe
19 minutes ago
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Zelensky rejects formally ceding Ukrainian territory, says Kyiv must be part of any negotiations
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'It seems entirely logical for our delegation to fly across the Bering Strait simply, and for such an important and anticipated summit of the leaders of the two countries to be held in Alaska,' Putin's foreign affairs adviser, Yuri Ushakov, said Saturday in a statement posted to the Kremlin's news channel. In his comments at the White House Friday, Trump gave no details on the 'swapping of territories.' Analysts, including some close to the Kremlin, have suggested that Russia could offer to give up territory it controls outside of the four regions it claims to have annexed. Trump said his meeting with Putin would come before any sit-down discussion involving Zelensky. His announcement that he planned to host one of America's adversaries on US soil broke with expectations that they'd meet in a third country. Nigel Gould-Davies, a senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, told the AP that the 'symbology' of holding the summit in Alaska was clear and that the location 'naturally favors Russia.' Advertisement 'It's easy to imagine Putin making the point. … We once had this territory and we gave it to you, therefore Ukraine had this territory and now should give it to us,' he said, referring to the 1867 transaction known as the Alaska Purchase when Russia sold Alaska to the United States for $7.2 million. On the streets of Kyiv, reactions to the idea of Ukraine ceding territory to Russia ranged from skepticism to quiet resignation. 'It may not be capitulation, but it would be a loss,' said Ihor Usatenko, a 67-year-old pensioner, who said he would consider ceding territory 'on condition for compensation and, possibly, some reparations.' Anastasia Yemelianova, 31, said she was torn: 'Honestly, I have two answers to that question. The first is as a person who loves her country. I don't want to compromise within myself,' she told the AP. 'But seeing all these deaths and knowing that my mother is now living in Nikopol under shelling and my father is fighting, I want all this to end as soon as possible.' Svitlana Dobrynska, whose son died fighting, rejected outright concessions but supported halting combat to save lives. 'We don't have the opportunity to launch an offensive to recapture our territories,' the 57-year-old pensioner said, 'But to prevent people from dying, we can simply stop military operations, sign some kind of agreement, but not give up our territories.' Before Trump announced the summit, his efforts to pressure Russia to stop the fighting had delivered no progress. Trump had moved up an ultimatum to impose additional sanctions on Russia and introduce secondary tariffs targeting countries that buy Russian oil if the Kremlin did not move toward a settlement. The deadline was Friday. The White House did not answer questions Saturday about possible sanctions. Advertisement The Kremlin's bigger army is slowly advancing deeper into Ukraine at great cost in troops and armor while it relentlessly bombards Ukrainian cities. On Saturday, two people died and 16 were wounded when a Russian drone hit a minibus in the suburbs of the Ukrainian city of Kherson, regional Gov. Oleksandr Prokudin said. Two others died after a Russian drone struck their car in the Zaporizhzhia region, according to regional Gov. Ivan Fedorov. Ukraine's air force said it intercepted 16 of the 47 Russian drones launched overnight, while 31 drones hit targets across 15 different locations. It also said it shot down one of the two missiles Russia deployed. Russia's Defense Ministry said its air defenses shot down 97 Ukrainian drones over Russia and the Black Sea overnight and 21 more Saturday morning.
