The Trump administration’s recent proposal to fundamentally alter how the nation conducts the upcoming 2030 census could result in drastically undercounting communities of color, disenfranchise those groups through redrawn voting maps and congressional districts, and ultimately change the way Americans receive social services.
“President Trump’s proposed overhaul would deny immigrants full representation while stripping away race, ethnicity data, and sexual orientation data that communities, advocates, and policymakers rely on to enforce the Voting Rights Act, identify disparities, and ensure resources reach those who need them most,” Rep. Jonathan Jackson, D-Ill., told The Emancipator in a statement.
“This proposal would turn back decades of progress since the civil rights movement,” he said. “By creating fear around participation and government scrutiny, it could also have a chilling effect, leading to lower response rates and deeper undercounts in immigrant communities.”
Significance. The Census Bureau proposal calls for the next census to exclude counting immigrants without a green card or legal documentation to stay in the United States. If approved, critics say this change to gathering census data would mark a huge shift from the 14th Amendment’s Section II provision, which requires that a state’s political representation based on Census data must be made by “counting the whole number of persons in each state.”
“The 14th Amendment is clear: the census must count all people who live in this country, not just the people this administration thinks count,” Jackson said in his statement to The Emancipator.
The Trump administration also proposes doing away with census questions that include asking for a person’s race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. Questions about race and ethnicity have been included in the census since the first federal count conducted in 1790.
Although the federal government has not previously explicitly asked about sexual orientation in previous censuses, they have asked couples if they live with “same sex” or “opposite sex” partners.
Since then, questions about diversity have helped the federal government understand what services could better serve the different demographics in communities and their unique needs.
Overlooked angle. Critics worry the move is also part of a broader initiative by the Trump administration to systemically suppress diversity in the U.S. population and create a majority-White national identity, consolidate political power and while cutting government spending on programs aimed at helping diverse populations.
Demographers have long predicted that in 20 years, people of color will make up the majority of the nation’s population.
However, voters of color are not monolithic in their voting and, increasingly, immigrants in particular are trending right in their politics.
“It is absolutely a fallacy to assume that demographics must be destiny,” Johns Hopkins history professor Leah Wright Rigueur told a gathering of journalists and scholars during the 2024 elections.
Power structure. Trump’s proposal to change guidelines for the 2030 census is yet another tactic by his administration to redraw voting maps, determine each state’s number of representatives in Congress and distribute Electoral College votes among states for personal gain and Republican Party domination.
“This isn’t about accuracy. It’s about power—who gets counted, who gets represented, and who gets their fair share,” Jackson said.
Last summer, Trump asked Texas Republicans to redraw the congressional map to help the party gain five more seats, which he argued it was “entitled” to, multiple outlets reported at the time. A redistricting battle has unfolded across the country as both Democratic and Republican-dominated state legislatures seek to redraw maps in a bid to gain a majority in Congress.
Trump also attempted to limit mail-in voting–a method of voting that Asian Americans have historically used in higher proportions and which has presented challenges for Native American voters.
Black voters tend to vote for Democratic presidential candidates in general elections, including in the most recent general election. For example, in the last presidential election, 77% Black men and just over 91% of Black women voted for the former Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party candidate. Among Asian Americans, 56% of men and 57% of women voted for Kamala Harris. And roughly 54% of Hispanic men voted for Trump, while 60% of Hispanic women cast ballots for Harris.
These limits have varied in success, with more decisions tied up in court ahead of elections, even though mail-in ballots have already been sent in some states.
During his first administration, Trump tried and failed to similarly change guidelines for the 2020 Census and exclude the count of people without proper legal documentation.
What experts say. “Let’s call this what it is: an attempt to erase people of color from the American population,” said Rep. Adriano Espaillat, D-NY, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus chairman, in a statement to The Emancipator.
“The Census is not a tool for President Trump to decide who is worthy of being counted. The Constitution requires a count of the whole number of persons in each state—not just the people this administration chooses to recognize,” Espaillat wrote. “Excluding immigrants and eliminating race and ethnicity data would weaken the political power of communities of color and undermine our ability to enforce our nation’s civil rights laws. This proposal is rooted in racism and xenophobia, and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus will fight it with everything we have.”
Managing Editor Lima Abdullah contributed to this report.
