Sponsors (21)
The bill would generate new citizen-vs-noncitizen state-level data and preserve representation for high-citizen states, but at the risk of reducing census participation and accuracy, weakening representation and funding for immigrant-rich communities, and raising civil‑liberties and legal challenges.
State governments, local planners, and researchers would receive official state-level citizen vs. noncitizen counts within 120 days after each decennial census, giving them new disaggregated data to analyze demographic trends and allocate services.
Residents of states with higher citizen shares (e.g., some rural or less-immigrant states) would be more likely to retain current House seats and Electoral College influence because apportionment would be explicitly tied to citizens/voters.
People living in states and communities with large noncitizen populations — including immigrants, children of noncitizens, and many urban communities — would likely lose House seats and Electoral College influence, reducing their federal political voice and ability to attract resources.
Asking about or using citizenship status for apportionment could reduce census response (whole-household nonresponse) and/or require new administrative-record processing, undermining the accuracy of population counts and federal funding formulas used to allocate services across states and localities.
Public release of state-level citizen/noncitizen counts increases the risk that those data could be used to target immigrants for enforcement or discriminatory policies, raising civil‑liberties and safety concerns for immigrant communities.
Based on analysis of 4 sections of legislative text.
Requires citizenship data on the decennial census and uses citizens-only counts for congressional apportionment starting with the 2030 census.
Introduced June 29, 2025 by William Francis Hagerty · Last progress June 29, 2025
Requires the Census Bureau to add a citizenship-status checkbox to the 2030 decennial census (and every decennial census after) and to publish state-level counts of citizens and noncitizens soon after each census. Changes the law that determines how seats in the U.S. House of Representatives are apportioned so that only citizens are counted for apportionment beginning with the 2030 census. The law would shift the population base used to allocate House seats (and thus electoral votes) from total resident population to citizens only, require new data collection and tabulation by the Census Bureau, and includes a severability clause if parts are ruled unconstitutional or invalid.