Trump admin pushes sweeping overhaul of census that could exclude millions, reshape Congress and slash federal funding

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The Trump administration on Wednesday proposed sweeping changes to the US census that could leave millions out of the count, dramatically altering the allocation of congressional seats and billions in federal funds.

The proposed regulation posted in the Federal Register would add a citizenship question to the 2030 census and exclude immigrants who are not legal permanent residents from the nationwide population survey, leaving out undocumented individuals, asylum seekers and refugees.

The proposal — similar to an unsuccessful effort from President Donald Trump’s first term — marks a dramatic shift from longstanding census practices which have historically counted all residents regardless of immigration status.

Critics and civil rights groups have long warned that Trump’s attempt to add a citizenship question would result in minorities being undercounted by scaring off even legal residents or naturalized citizens from completing the decennial questionnaire, which is also used to determine funding for an array of government programs.

It could take months for the proposed changes to become official, and they are likely to face legal challenges. The public has 30 days to submit comments in response.

The rules, which are not final, come just over a year after Trump directed the Department of Commerce to begin work on a new census that excludes undocumented immigrants and adds the citizenship question back to the census. The regulatory effort also arrives months after the administration installed a group of partisan analysts from the Trump-aligned America First Policy Institute inside the Census Bureau, CNN reported in August. The agency has traditionally been led by career statisticians and operated independently of the White House.

The US Constitution requires a national census every ten years in order to determine how many seats each state gets in the House of Representatives. The 14th Amendment requires a count of “the whole number of persons in each State.”

The administration is also seeking to not include questions about race, ethnicity or sexual orientation, claiming that the survey “should be colorblind and should not be distorted in any way by questions about immaterial personal characteristics.”

Trump has been trying to rewrite the census rules since his first term, when he attempted to reinsert the citizenship question which had been included in most census counts from 1820 to 1950. He has argued it was necessary to better comply with federal voting rights law.

The president’s move led to a lawsuit from a coalition of 18 attorneys general, six cities and the bipartisan US Conference of Mayors and was ultimately blocked by the Supreme Court.

After the high court’s ruling, Trump eventually backed away from the effort and went on to ask federal agencies to provide records that could determine a head count of citizens instead.

CNN’s Gabe Cohen, Fredreka Schouten, Ethan Cohen and Alejandra Jaramillo contributed to this report.

贾斯汀·沙利文/盖蒂图片社

特朗普政府周三提议对美国人口普查进行全面改革，这可能导致数百万人被排除在统计之外，从而极大地改变国会席位的分配和数十亿美元的联邦资金。

联邦公报上公布的拟议法规将在 2030 年人口普查中增加公民身份问题，并将非合法永久居民的移民排除在全国人口调查之外，从而将无证人员、寻求庇护者和难民排除在外。

该提案与唐纳德·特朗普总统第一任期内一项不成功的尝试类似，标志着人口普查长期以来的做法发生了巨大转变，以往的普查做法是统计所有居民，而不考虑其移民身份。

批评人士和民权组织长期以来一直警告说，特朗普试图在人口普查中加入公民身份问题，这将导致少数族裔人口被低估，因为这会吓跑即使是合法居民或入籍公民，让他们不愿填写每十年一次的调查问卷。该问卷还用于确定一系列政府项目的资金。

拟议的变更可能需要数月时间才能正式生效，而且很可能面临法律挑战。公众有30天时间提交意见。

这些尚未最终定稿的规则出台，距离特朗普指示商务部启动一项新的普查工作仅一年多。这项新普查将无证移民排除在外，并将公民身份问题重新纳入普查范围。据美国有线电视新闻网（CNN）8月份报道，就在几个月前，特朗普政府还在人口普查局内部安插了一批来自与其关系密切的“美国优先政策研究所”的党派分析师。该机构历来由职业统计学家领导，并独立于白宫运作。

美国宪法规定每十年进行一次全国人口普查，以确定各州在众议院的席位数量。第十四修正案要求统计“各州的全部人口”。

政府还试图不纳入有关种族、民族或性取向的问题，声称该调查“应该是不带种族偏见的，不应以任何方式受到有关无关个人特征的问题的扭曲”。

自特朗普第一任期以来，他就一直试图修改人口普查规则。当时，他试图重新加入公民身份问题，该问题曾包含在1820年至1950年的大多数人口普查中。他辩称，这样做是为了更好地遵守联邦投票权法。

总统的这一举动引发了由 18 位州检察长、6 个城市和两党组成的美国市长会议组成的联盟提起的诉讼，最终被最高法院阻止。

最高法院做出裁决后，特朗普最终放弃了这一努力，转而要求联邦机构提供可以确定公民人数的记录。

CNN 的 Gabe Cohen、Fredreka Schouten、Ethan Cohen 和 Alejandra Jaramillo 对本报告做出了贡献。