First posted on Instagram · @profilopolitics
Rep. Randy Fine of Florida said on Thursday that he has joined Rep. Mary Miller of Illinois and 43 of their House colleagues in demanding that the Commerce Department count only American citizens in the 2030 Census when apportioning seats in the House of Representatives. "It's disgusting that Democrats want foreign invaders counted for congressional representation. This country is for our citizens ONLY," Fine wrote in a post on X.
The demand is in a letter Miller led, sent on October 30 to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, backing the Census Bureau's proposed changes to the 2030 count and asking the bureau to go further. The letter urges the bureau to exclude all noncitizens from the apportionment count — including green card holders, temporary visa holders, refugees, asylees, DACA recipients, parolees and people with temporary protected status — and to add a citizenship question to the census. "Congressional representation should be determined by American citizens, not millions of foreign nationals who have no allegiance to our country," Miller said.
The letter backs a rule the Census Bureau proposed on September 10, which would change the residence criteria for the 2030 Census so that undocumented immigrants and noncitizens whose legal status the bureau calls less durable would not count toward apportionment. Under the proposed rule, lawful permanent residents would still be counted; the letter asks for them to be left out as well.
The push has drawn opposition. Six former Census Bureau directors who served under presidents of both parties going back to 1994 have asked the Commerce Department to drop the proposed rule, saying it "dramatically complicates the collection of complete, accurate data, and puts the 2030 Decennial at risk." Attorneys general from more than 20 states and the District of Columbia wrote on November 2 that the rule violates the Constitution, which directs that the census count "the whole number of persons," and the Census Act. The American Civil Liberties Union has also urged the bureau to withdraw the rule.
A separate bill would go further and faster. Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia filed a bill on September 15, H.R. 10377, that would exclude noncitizens from the population used for apportionment, require a revised apportionment before the 2028 election and require a citizenship question on all future censuses. Forty-two House Republicans signed on as cosponsors the day it was filed, including Fine. The bill was referred to the House Judiciary and Oversight committees and has had no hearing or vote.
The stakes are the makeup of the House itself: the 2030 Census will determine how the 435 House seats are divided among the states for the following decade. A Pew Research Center projection of the 2020 count found that leaving unauthorized immigrants out would have cost California, Florida and Texas one seat each.