Migrants wait for their CBP One appointments before crossing through El Chaparral border port in Tijuana, Mexico, on Jan. 20, 2025. The Trump administration shuts down the CBP One app. (Carlos Moreno/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
In February 2018, the U.S. Census Bureau developed criteria for the 2020 census, dubbed the "Residence Rule," stating that foreign nationals living in the U.S. are counted in the census and allocated to the state where their "usual residence" is located. The lawsuit notes how that was regardless of whether those foreign nationals are lawfully present in the U.S. and "regardless of whether any visa they may possess is temporary."
After the 2020 census, the lawsuit says former President Biden's Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, as well as the Census Bureau and its director, Robert Santos, decided to include "illegal aliens and aliens holding temporary visas ('nonimmigrant aliens') in the census figures used for determining the apportionment of the House of Representatives and Electoral College votes."
The lawsuit says the Residence Rule violates the Fourteenth Amendment's equal representation principle by "robbing the people of the Plaintiff States of their rightful share of political representation, while systematically redistributing political power to states with high numbers of illegal aliens and nonimmigrant aliens," as well as Article II, Section 1, of the United States Constitution by "necessitating an unconstitutional distribution of Electoral College votes among the states."
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People wait for their CBP One appointments before crossing through El Chaparral border port in Tijuana, Mexico, on Jan. 20, 2025. The Trump administration shut down the CBP One app for migrants. (Carlos Moreno/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
The attorneys general argue that illegal immigration "affects the distribution of seats in the House of Representatives and the Electoral College because the illegal alien population is both large and highly concentrated in a minority of states."
The lawsuit goes on to summarize research suggesting there are about 11.7 million illegal immigrants in the U.S., stating that over the last three decades, the United States "has been undergoing the largest wave of immigration in American history."
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"Counting illegal aliens in the census takes voting power from some Americans and gives it to others," the lawsuit says.
President Trump has promised mass deportations and declared a state of emergency at the southern border on his first day in office. It's unclear how the lawsuit will impact the incoming Trump administration.
Danielle Wallace is a breaking news and politics reporter at Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to danielle.wallace@fox.com and on X: @danimwallace.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/4-states-sue-block-illegal-migrants-census-count-used-assign-congressional-seats-electoral-votes