Mother Jones: “Trump’s New Census Directive Is Almost Certainly Unconstitutional His memorandum would exclude undocumented immigrants when drawing congressional districts.”
President Trump issued a memorandum on Tuesday attempting to prevent undocumented immigrants from being counted when determining congressional representation based on the 2020 census.
Ari Berman for Mother Jones states that
“The directive, issued to the secretary of commerce, who oversees the Census Bureau, is almost certainly unconstitutional. The census is constitutionally mandated to count all people—regardless of citizenship or legal status—and the 14th Amendment requires that `representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state.’”
Thomas A. Saenz, president and general counsel of MALDEF (Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund) issued the following statement in response to Donald Trump’s memorandum to the Secretary of Commerce that seeks to alter the required count of every person for the purpose of reapportionment by excluding some immigrants.
“Today’s memorandum from Donald Trump to Lyin’ Wilbur Ross epitomizes the lawlessness of this administration. As the Supreme Court has long held, persons are persons under our Constitution, regardless of immigration status. This memorandum will be swiftly struck down by the federal courts. Anticipating just this lawlessness, MALDEF filed a cross-claim last year against the federal government in the pending Alabama federal court litigation; the cross-claim seeks to prevent the federal government from pursuing the unconstitutional removal of certain immigrants from the apportionment count. In that venue, and likely in others, Donald Trump will yet again be schooled in the law. Today’s memorandum will end up in the dustbin of history as yet another exemplar of Donald Trump’s disturbing embrace of white nationalism. It will stand as another shameful monument to his attempts to sow division in our nation’s populace. It will earn recognition as another unmasking of Trump’s perverse and damaging ’leadership.’
“MALDEF will be in court to stop this latest example of blatantly unconstitutional executive action by a failed presidency.”
Stay tuned as the fallout (see, for example, here) no doubt will be fast and furious.
KJ