Trump census plan could exclude immigrants and drop race data

Losangeles,UPDATED: Sep 11, 2026 08:36 IST

The Trump administration has proposed sweeping changes to the once-a-decade US Census that could leave out millions of immigrants and remove key questions on race, ethnicity and possibly LGBTQ+ identity. The changes, announced on Wednesday, could affect how resources are distributed and how political representation is worked out in the United States.

The proposal would exclude undocumented immigrants, asylum seekers and anyone without permanent status from the headcount. It also revives an idea linked to Trump’s earlier push to add a citizenship question to the 2030 census, while raising concerns that the quality of census data could be badly affected.

In a post on the Federal Register website, the US Census Bureau said, "illegal aliens (among others) should not be included in the apportionment count, as they are not true inhabitants, members of the body politic, or persons with a usual residence in the United States due to their lack of a sufficient tie and allegiance to the United States." The agency also said the census "should be colourblind and should not be distorted in any way by questions about immaterial personal characteristics, such as race," and added that it was considering dropping questions related to people who identify as part of the LGBTQ+ community.

Beth Jarosz, a data researcher and vice president of the Association of Public Data Users, described the proposals as "unprecedented". She said, "Not counting all of the people who reside here is actually where the real threat is," adding, "If you think about all of the ways that census data are used." Census figures are traditionally used for the apportionment count that decides how many seats each state gets in the US House of Representatives, and that count also helps determine the number of votes in the Electoral College.

Jarosz said errors in the count could weaken representation. "You can imagine if we have undercounts or if we have people counted in the wrong place," she said. "Then their political power or their political representation gets diluted."

She said immigrants of every status have historically been counted in the decennial census, and that the exercise has not usually sought to carry out a full count based on citizenship status, though such information may come up in the Census Bureau’s periodic American Community Survey. She added that an accurate count of immigrants of different statuses is important when assigning resources during public health emergencies or natural or human-made disasters. "If you don’t have a count of everyone who’s there, you’re not going to have the resources you need," Jarosz said. "And that puts everybody at risk."

Questions related to race have been part of the census since 1790. From 2000, the US census began allowing people to identify with more than one race. A 2015 Pew Research Centre study found that multiracial people in the US were growing at a rate three times faster than the general population. By 2020, 33.8 million people in the country had identified as belonging to more than one race, according to the census. Race and ethnicity data is used by researchers studying discrimination, crime rates and wealth gaps in communities of colour.

Manjusha Kulkarni, co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate and executive director of AAPI Equity Alliance, said the proposed changes would have a major effect on the communities the groups serve. In a text message, she said, "It also seeks to exclude important demographic data from millions that enables lawmakers, health care providers, public safety officials and community advocates -- really anyone who cares about the health, safety and well-being of all Americans -- from having the necessary data to keep us safe and healthy." She added that dropping race and ethnicity data, along with excluding some immigrants, sends a message that these communities do not matter.

Jarosz said collecting data for the 2030 Census with these elements missing would be harmful. "These changes are like trying to land an airplane when you are in thick fog and someone has thrown paint across the front window and your instruments are also not working," she said. In effect, the proposals could reshape who is counted in the census and remove demographic data that is widely used for representation, public services and research.

With PTI Inputs

- Ends