California sues Trump over census policy that could exclude 2 million residents from count

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra announced on Tuesday a new lawsuit against the Trump administration over a memorandum it released last week that aims to exclude undocumented immigrants from the 2020 Census formula used to calculate the number of congressional seats each state is given.

California, home to more than 2 million undocumented immigrants, could lose political influence and federal funding that is tied to the census count if the policy moves forward.

“There’s no state, no area in the country hit harder, hit faster by this than California,” Becerra said.

The state’s lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, is joined by the cities of Los Angeles, Long Beach and Oakland, as well as the Los Angeles Unified School District. Becerra announced the lawsuit during a virtual press conference with Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer and LAUSD board member Monica Garcia.

Feuer called the memo an “unconstitutional power grab by a president who is desperate to shift political power away from jurisdictions that have significant numbers of immigrants.”

Garcia said the memo was an attack on students.

“Now more than ever, all of our students, including our immigrant community need support and voice in the federal government that can only be accomplished by ensuring full representation and participation in the census,” she said.

The state has 53 congressional seats. Demographers estimate that California will lose one seat due to population change after the census. With the exclusion of undocumented immigrants, the state could stand to lose another seat.

In every census conducted since 1790, the lawsuit argues, the U.S. has counted all of its residents, including for the purpose of apportioning the U.S. House of Representatives, regardless of a resident’s citizenship or immigration status.

“This practice, consistently followed for well over two centuries, is required by constitutional and statutory mandates,” according to the lawsuit.

The Trump administration argues that the Constitution does not define which persons must be included in the apportionment base and that it is up to the executive branch to determine who qualifies as an inhabitant.

“Excluding these illegal aliens from the apportionment base is more consonant with the principles of representative democracy underpinning our system of Government,” according to the memo signed by President Donald Trump.

Giving congressional representation and political influence to states with undocumented immigrants undermines those principles, the memo continued.

The lawsuit states that in every census conducted since 1790, the U.S. has counted all its residents regardless of a residents’ citizenship or immigration status.

“This practice, consistently followed for well over two centuries, is required by constitutional and statutory mandates.”

California was among several states to challenge the Trump administration over the addition of a citizenship question to the census in 2018 when Becerra filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. State leaders feared the question would lead to an inaccurate count by discouraging immigrants from participating in the decennial count.

The Supreme Court rejected Trump’s argument to add the question in 2019.

California’s new lawsuit alleges the administration pursued its latest census memo on undocumented immigrants because its previous effort failed.

“The memorandum at issue in this action is directly related to defendants’ earlier efforts to exclude immigrants from the census count by adding a question to the 2020 census questionnaire on citizenship status,” the lawsuit says.

Becerra urged people to not be dissuaded or intimidated from participating in the census.

“The law requires that everyone in America, whether citizen or not, be counted,” Becerra said.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the deadline to participate in the census has been extended to the end of October.

This story was originally published July 28, 2020 at 11:21 AM with the headline "California sues Trump over census policy that could exclude 2 million residents from count."