President Donald Trump announced in a social media post on Thursday that he has directed the Department of Commerce to begin work on a new US census that excludes undocumented immigrants from the population count.
“I have instructed our Department of Commerce to immediately begin work on a new and highly accurate CENSUS based on modern day facts and figures and, importantly, using the results and information gained from the Presidential Election of 2024,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.
“People who are in our Country illegally WILL NOT BE COUNTED IN THE CENSUS,” the president added.
Trump’s proposal marks a dramatic shift from longstanding census practices. The survey has historically counted all residents regardless of immigration status.
The announcement also comes amid growing pressure from the White House for Republican-led states to redraw congressional maps in a way that could strengthen the GOP going into the 2026 midterms.
The Constitution mandates a national census every ten years based on “the whole Number of free Persons,” not only those who are American citizens, to determine congressional representation, and the census website states it is “designed to count every resident in the United States.” Changes to the census could impact the balance of power in states and the House of Representatives, which are based on total population.
Trump previously attempted to change the 2020 Census during his first term, repeatedly saying he would continue fighting to insert a citizenship question into the survey for the first time since 1950 – something he argued was necessary to better comply with federal voting rights law – despite the Supreme Court blocking the effort.
Critics back then said adding the question would result in minorities being undercounted by scaring off even legal residents or naturalized citizens from completing the decennial questionnaire, which is also used to determine funding for an array of government programs.
Trump then retreated from his quest, instead asking government agencies to provide records that could determine a head count of citizens without polling census-takers directly.
Trump’s move to change the census is his latest action that casts doubt on nonpartisan government reports. He last week fired Dr. Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, whom he accused, without evidence, of manipulating the monthly jobs reports for “political purposes.”
This story has been updated with additional details.
