The Trump administration published a proposal Wednesday that would no longer count immigrants without legal residency in the 2030 U.S. census. The proposed change would also exclude immigrants in the country under temporary lawful protections.
The U.S. census, a count of every person in the nation every ten years, helps guide federal funding decisions and is used to determine congressional representation. Federal funding, such as assistance programs, is rewarded based on factors including demographic data collected by the decennial census.
According to the United States Census Bureau, 353 federal assistance programs use census data to determine how federal money is distributed, though the bureau itself does not make decisions on federal funding.
If approved, the measure would also affect congressional maps by changing the population count used to determine how many representatives a state may get in Congress.
Included in the proposal is a provision suggesting the removal of demographic questions like sexual orientation, race and ethnicity.
Amid the proposal, advocates and constitutional experts have raised concerns on whether the new proposal violates the Fourth Amendment’s mandate to count the “whole number of persons in each state.”
William Roberts, senior vice president of Rights and Justice at the Center for American Progress, wrote in an online statement the new proposal could make it difficult to enforce the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The law prohibits racial discrimination in voting, and removing the demographic questions could make enforcement more difficult, he added.
“Eliminating questions on race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation strips our government of critical data needed to ensure vital resources are extended to the communities who need them most,” he wrote.
In Florida, earlier fights surrounding census data and representation began last year.
In 2025, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced an effort to correct the 2020 U.S. census, saying he believed Florida was “shortchanged” in Congressional representation.
DeSantis said data in the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2022 Post-Enumeration Survey showed Florida was undercounted by 3.5%.
In Florida, the state with the third largest immigrant population in the country, immigrants make up about 10% of the population, according to the Migration Policy Institute.
He said the state did not make an effort to count immigrants without legal residency in the 2020 census, unlike states such as California. He called the practice of counting immigrants without legal status “unconstitutional.”
The proposal is open to public comment until Oct. 13.
Contact Olivia Lofaso at olofaso@alligator.org. Follow her on X @OLofaso77652.
Olivia Lofaso is a senior journalism student at UF and the Fall 2026 City and County Commission reporter, a role she previously held during the summer. She enjoys gushing about her cocker spaniels to anyone who will listen and playing the cello in her free time.
