Some Republicans in Congress are pushing to require a citizenship question on the questionnaire for the once-a-decade census and exclude people who aren’t citizens from the count that helps determines political power in the United States.
The GOP-led House on Wednesday passed a bill which would eliminate noncitizens from the tally gathered during a census and used to decide how many House seats and Electoral College votes each state gets. The bill is unlikely to pass the Democratic-controlled Senate, the White House opposes it and there are legal questions because the Constitution says all people should be counted during the apportionment process.
But the proposal has set off alarms among redistricting experts, civil rights groups and Democratic lawmakers as a reprise of efforts by the Trump administration to place limits that would dramatically alter the dynamics of the census, which plays a foundational role in the distribution of political power and federal funding.
Still, opponents say the idea, once on the ideological fringe, has never gotten so far in the legislative process.
In March, senators rejected similar Republican-sponsored language in an appropriations bill. That push was seen as an effort to bolster the Republican agenda on immigration before the November elections, with Donald Trump as the party's presumptive nominee against Democratic President Joe Biden.
“It's taking it closer to reality than it has ever been,” said Steve Jost, a former Census Bureau official in the Obama and Clinton administrations. “This is part of a cohesive strategy in the GOP ... of getting every single possible advantage when the country is so closely divided.”
The 14th Amendment requires that congressional seats be distributed among the states “according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State.” Besides helping allocate congressional seats and Electoral College votes, census figures guide the distribution of $2.8 trillion in federal money.
“We ask all kinds of questions on the census anyway so what’s wrong with asking, ‘Are you a citizen?’” Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said Wednesday during debate on the House floor.
Similar efforts failed before the last census in 2020 when the Supreme Court blocked the Trump administration from adding a citizenship question to the census form. Following that defeat, the government under Trump tried to discern the citizenship status of every U.S. resident through administrative records and sought to exclude people who were in the U.S. illegally from the count used for apportioning congressional seats.
Biden, in one of his first acts as president in January 2021, signed two orders revoking those Trump directives.
During a House Rules Committee hearing Monday, Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Utah, said including noncitizens in the nation's head count “skews representation away from American citizens” and is tied to Biden's "border crisis” because it helps places with large numbers of people who aren’t citizens.
“Localities sympathetic to the president’s agenda are poised to directly benefit,” Burgess said.
According to critics, the citizenship question was inspired by the late Republican redistricting expert Tom Hofeller. He had written that using citizen voting-age population instead of the total population for the purpose of redrawing of congressional and legislative districts could be advantageous to Republicans and non-Hispanic whites.
Republican supporters of the legislation contend counting people who are in the U.S. illegally helps Democrats.
Knowing how many people who aren’t citizens in the U.S. is “the best way to obtain accurate information,” Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., said at the hearing.
If Trump becomes president, his administration could take steps to add a citizenship question without making the procedural mistakes cited by the Supreme Court in its 2019 ruling, said Jeffrey Wice, a redistricting expert.
“This is really a replay of the fight that Trump started,” Wice said. “They have more time, should he win in November, to avoid the mistakes and go through a much more deliberative census planning process.”
The Biden administration says the GOP bill would increase the cost of conducting the census, make it more difficult to obtain accurate information and violate the 14th Amendment.
Results from a Census Bureau simulation last year indicated a significant number of noncitizens were missed in the 2020 census. Some civil rights groups said that was evidence the Trump administration's citizenship-question push contributed to an undercount for some racial and ethnic minorities.
“The Constitution is the Constitution,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., said during floor debate Wednesday. “The rest of this strikes me as election-year rhetoric.”
Follow Mike Schneider on X, formerly known as Twitter: @MikeSchneiderAP.
FILE - The briefcase of a census taker is seen as she knocks on the door of a residence, Aug. 11, 2020, in Winter Park, Fla. Republican lawmakers are pushing measures that would require a citizenship question on the once-a-decade census and exclude people who aren’t citizens from the head count which determines political power in the U.S. (AP Photo/John Raoux, File)
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Pro-Palestinian protesters set up a new encampment at Drexel University in Philadelphia over the weekend, prompting a lockdown of school buildings, a day after authorities thwarted an attempted occupation of a school building at the neighboring University of Pennsylvania campus.
After several hundred demonstrators marched from Philadelphia’s City Hall to west Philadelphia on Saturday afternoon, Drexel said in a statement that about 75 protesters began to set up an encampment on the Korman Quad on the campus. About a dozen tents remained Sunday, blocked off by barricades and monitored by police officers. No arrests were reported.
Drexel President John Fry said in a message Saturday night that the encampment “raises understandable concerns about ensuring everyone’s safety,” citing what he called “many well-documented instances of hateful speech and intimidating behavior at other campus demonstrations.” University buildings were “open only to those with clearance from Drexel’s Public Safety,” he said.
Authorities at Drexel, which has about 22,000 students, were monitoring the demonstration to ensure it was peaceful and didn’t disrupt normal operations, and that “participants and passersby will behave respectfully toward one another,” Fry said.
“We will be prepared to respond quickly to any disruptive or threatening behavior by anyone,” Fry said, vowing not to tolerate property destruction, “harassment or intimidation” of students or staff or threatening behavior of any kind, including “explicitly racist, antisemitic, or Islamophobic” speech. Anyone not part of the Drexel community would not be allowed “to trespass into our buildings and student residences,” he said.
On Friday night, members of Penn Students Against the Occupation of Palestine had announced an action at the University of Pennsylvania’s Fisher-Bennett Hall, urging supporters to bring “flags, pots, pans, noise-makers, megaphones” and other items.
The university said campus police, supported by city police, removed the demonstrators Friday night, arresting 19 people, including six University of Pennsylvania students. The university’s division of public safety said officials found “lock-picking tools and homemade metal shields,” and exit doors secured with zip ties and barbed wire, windows covered with newspaper and cardboard and entrances blocked.
Authorities said seven people arrested would face felony charges, including one accused of having assaulted an officer, while a dozen were issued citations for failing to disperse and follow police commands.
The attempted occupation of the building came a week after city and campus police broke up a two-week encampment on the campus, arresting 33 people, nine of whom were students and two dozen of whom had “no Penn affiliation,” according to university officials.
On Sunday, dozens of George Washington University graduates walked out of commencement ceremonies, disrupting university President Ellen Granberg’s speech, in protest over the ongoing siege of Gaza and last week’s clearing of an on-campus protest encampment that involved police use of pepper spray and dozens of arrests.
The ceremony, at the base of the Washington Monument, started peacefully with fewer than 100 protesters demonstrating across the street in front of the Museum of African American History and Culture. But as Granberg began speaking, at least 70 students among the graduates started chanting and raising signs and Palestinian flags. The students then noisily walked out as Granberg spoke, crossing the street to a rapturous response from the protesters.
Students and others have set up tent encampments on campuses around the country to protest the Israel-Hamas war , pressing colleges to cut financial ties with Israel. Tensions over the war have been high on campuses since the fall but demonstrations spread quickly following an April 18 police crackdown on an encampment at Columbia University.
Nearly 3,000 people have been arrested on U.S. campuses over the past month. As summer break approaches, there have been fewer new arrests and campuses have been calmer. Still, colleges have been vigilant for disruptions to commencement ceremonies.
President Joe Biden told the graduating class at Morehouse College on Sunday, which included some students wearing keffiyeh scarves around their shoulders on top of their black graduation robes, that he heard their voices of protest and that scenes from the conflict in Gaza have been heartbreaking. He said given what he called a “humanitarian crisis” there, he had called for “an immediate cease-fire” and return of hostages taken by Hamas.
The latest Israel-Hamas war began when Hamas and other militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing around 1,200 people and taking an additional 250 hostage. Palestinian militants still hold about 100 captives, while Israel’s military has killed more than 35,000 people in Gaza, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants.
George Washington University students walk out in a pro-Palestinian protest during the commencement ceremony in Washington, Sunday, May 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Pro-Palestinian supporters protest near the commencement at Morehouse College, Sunday, May 19, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
George Washington University students carrying a Palestinian flag walk out in protest during the commencement ceremony in Washington, Sunday, May 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Pro-Palestinian supporters protest near the commencement at Morehouse College, Sunday, May 19, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
George Washington University students walk out in a pro-Palestinian protest during the commencement ceremony in Washington, Sunday, May 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
George Washington University students carrying signs walk out during a pro-Palestinian protest during a commencement ceremony in Washington, Sunday, May 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
EDS NOTE: OBSCENITY - A George Washington University student gestures in protest during George Washington University President Ellen Granberg's speech as students walk out in a pro-Palestinian demonstration during the commencement ceremony in Washington, Sunday, May 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
A George Washington University student with hands painted red walks out with other graduates in a pro-Palestinian protest during the commencement ceremony in Washington, Sunday, May 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
George Washington University students carry a sign during a pro-Palestinian protest as George Washington University President Ellen Granberg speaks at a commencement ceremony in Washington, Sunday, May 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
President Joe Biden receives an honorary degree at the Morehouse College commencement Sunday, May 19, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Pro-Palestinian protesters gather outside the gates to the courtyard at the University of Pennsylvania Museum on Friday, May 17, 2024 in Philadelphia. Authorities say a half-dozen University of Pennsylvania students were among 19 pro-Palestinian protesters arrested during an attempt to occupy a building on campus. University police say seven remained in custody Saturday awaiting felony charges from Friday's incident, including one person who allegedly assaulted an officer. (Charles Fox/The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP)
A protester is taken into custody at S. 34th St. near University of Pennsylvania campus in Philadelphia on Friday, May 17, 2024. Authorities say a half-dozen University of Pennsylvania students were among 19 pro-Palestinian protesters arrested during an attempt to occupy a building on campus. University police say seven remained in custody Saturday awaiting felony charges from Friday's incident, including one person who allegedly assaulted an officer. (Steven M. Falk/The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP)
