In August 2025, President Trump wrote on Truth Social that he has instructed the Department of Commerce to "begin work on a new and highly accurate CENSUS based on modern day facts and figures ... People who are in our Country illegally WILL NOT BE COUNTED IN THE CENSUS." Truth Social post August 7, 2025
The United States has been conducting a census of its people every ten years for 150 years. It is mandated by the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. "Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State."
The census determines how many seats each state gets in Congress and how many votes in the Electoral College in a presidential election. It also determines how billions in federal funding are allocated for schools, infrastructure, health care, and other essential services. This administration plans to exclude people without a documented immigration status from the count and remove questions about sexual orientation and gender identity. This will make it harder to track who qualifies for programs like Medicaid, food stamps, and assistance based on income and other social determinants of health. It will also disproportionately impact states with higher undocumented immigrant populations.
Schwabish, J. (2025, August 26). What happens if the census doesn’t count everyone? Urban Wire. Urban Institute. https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/what-happens-if-census-doesnt-count-everyone