Sponsors (67)
Excludes noncitizens from the population base used for House apportionment and requires citizenship data collection and state-level citizen/noncitizen counts starting with the 2030 census.
Official title: To require a citizenship question on the decennial census, to require reporting on certain census statistics, and to modify apportionment of Representatives to be based on United States citizens instead of all persons.
Introduced January 3, 2025 by Chuck Edwards · Last progress January 3, 2025
The bill would provide timely, citizenship-disaggregated census data and shift apportionment to reflect citizens more closely—potentially increasing representation for high-citizen states—while risking lower participation, privacy/exposure for immigrants, higher costs, and reduced representation and resources for immigrant-heavy communities.
States with higher shares of citizens (fewer noncitizens) could gain House seats and Electoral College votes beginning with the 2030 apportionment, increasing their federal representation and influence.
Apportionment would more closely reflect the citizen voting-eligible population, aligning federal representation with those eligible to vote for federal offices.
State governments would receive timely (within 120 days) citizenship-disaggregated population counts after the census to inform policy decisions, resource allocation, and planning.
States and localities with large noncitizen populations could lose House seats and Electoral College votes, reducing their political power and influence at the federal level.
Immigrant households and some residents may avoid participating or under-respond to the census because of a citizenship question, lowering response rates and producing undercounts that harm representation and funding accuracy.
Collecting and publishing citizenship-disaggregated data raises privacy and confidentiality risks and could enable immigration enforcement or politically motivated targeting of immigrants.
Based on analysis of 4 sections of legislative text.
Requires the Census Bureau to collect citizenship status on the decennial census beginning in 2030 and to publish state-level counts of citizens and noncitizens within 120 days after each census. Changes the formula used to apportion seats in the House of Representatives (and thus electoral vote allocation) to exclude noncitizens from the population base beginning with the apportionment based on the 2030 census.