The data obtained in the decadal U.S. Census informs the apportioning of House seats and the Electoral College in elections.
Senate Democrats have unanimously defeated Sen. Bill Hagerty’s (R-Tenn.) proposal to bar illegal immigrants from being counted in the national census, warning that their numbers go toward informing the apportioning of House seats and the Electoral College.
Soon after President Joe Biden took office in 2021, he signed an executive order requiring the Census Bureau to determine the population of each state in the United States without regard to whether residents have lawful immigration status.
The amendment, which would be added to the Equal Representation Act that Sen. Hagerty proposed last month, would require the Census Bureau to include a citizenship question in any future census. Anyone who isn’t a U.S. citizen, including people with temporary visas and green cards, would then be excluded from the ballot for congressional district and Electoral College apportionments. Census data is collected every 10 years.
The proposal was attached to the $460 billion government spending package that was passed on Saturday.
The measure was shot down 45-51 after failing to get even a single Democratic vote. Sen. Hagerty released a statement on March 8 accusing Democrats of holding back the amendment for political reasons, while also promising to keep pressing this issue.
“Democrats’ unanimous opposition to this commonsense measure confirms that they’re using illegal aliens and sanctuary cities to increase their political power,” he said.
“With this vote, Senate Democrats chose to trample on the rights of each American’s voice. I will continue to fight and press this issue in the Senate,” Sen. Hagerty added.
Sen. Hagerty has made this accusation in the past, arguing that Democrats in sanctuary cities are allowing illegal immigrants into their regions in the hopes of gaining more votes and greater representation in the House of Representatives and Electoral College.
A sanctuary city is an area where the authorities may limit cooperation with the federal government’s efforts to enforce immigration law, deportation, or prosecution. At the moment, roughly 200 cities, counties, and states are considered sanctuary cities in the United States, with New Orleans, New York City, and Washington, D.C., among them.
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