Trump order creates chaos with Democrats over census

When Donald Trump was in office the first time, he broke historical precedent by ordering the Department of Commerce to omit illegal immigrants from census totals.

When Biden came into office, he issued an order to cancel Trump’s order, which caused a bit of a delay in census numbers coming out.

Trump is back, and so is his order, asking the Commerce Department to revise the numbers to omit illegal immigrants, which will have widespread repercussions.

The Census

The census is conducted every 10 years in this country, and it is the measuring stick for most things related to the federal government.

Historically, the census includes everyone who lives in every state, including illegal immigrants.

This is used for government representation and government funding, just to name a few of the ways the census impacts everyone.

Trump does not like the fact that illegals are included, so he tried to omit them at the end of his administration from the 2020 census.

Not So Fast

Enter Joe Biden in 2021, who issued an order to cancel Trump’s request to omit illegals from the numbers.

At the time, Biden stated this would “ensure that the Census Bureau has time to complete an accurate population count for each state” in search of apportionment that is “fair and accurate so federal resources are efficiently and fairly distributed for the next decade.”

It’s a Redo

As noted above, a major contributor to state maps is the census, which is likely a contributing factor to why Trump wants the numbers redone.

Trump stated, "I have instructed our Department of Commerce to immediately begin work on a new and highly accurate CENSUS based on modern day facts and figures and, importantly, using the results and information gained from the Presidential Election of 2024.”

It is unclear if Trump wants another complete census or if he just wants the department to run the numbers from 2020 without illegals. Regardless, Democrats are going to fight this and litigate it immediately.

I love the idea, but the reality of this is that we are not likely to see this come to fruition in time to impact the 2026 election, so don’t get too excited about it. It could come into play in 2028, however, but there is still a very big question looming about the overall legality of Trump’s request.

DOJ Strikes

Trump is also doing something to flip the narrative on this with a major announcement by Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon.

Dhillon stated, "We are ensuring that all 50 states have and continue to have clean voter rolls. We are challenging efforts to suppress or dilute the vote. We are attacking illegal race-based gerrymandering. And we are protecting ballot access for all Americans."

This announcement was made to counter the attacks against Texas that the state is disregarding the votes of black and brown citizens with its redistricting plans.

Again, this is not just Texas. You want to see some crazy districts? Take a look at the maps of Illinois, then tell me how Texas is doing something that no other state is doing. Just because Illinois did it right after the census report does not make it right... far from it. The system itself is broken and badly in need of fixing.