While states squabble over gerrymandering, Trump sets sights on Census

I didn’t have much to say at first about the efforts of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Texas Republicans to redraw their congressional map, supposedly to create five more GOP-leaning districts to help Republicans hold the House of Representatives in the 2026 midterms.

But politics is a circus, and with Texas Democrats fleeing to safe havens like Illinois, New York, Massachusetts and California, not to mention threats of retaliatory gerrymandering elsewhere to ostensibly offset Texas’ redistricting, it’s become quite a show.

What is gerrymandering?

Gerrymandering is the process of purposely drawing congressional districts in a manner designed to ensure one party’s victory over another. The term was named for Elbridge Gerry, once the Governor of Massachusetts, who in 1812 signed legislation approving oddly-shaped legislative districts designed by members of his party to secure an electoral advantage. One such district was satirized by a newspaper cartoon, its shape compared to a salamander — hence the name “gerrymander.”

So far, California is the only state to have followed through on the gerrymandering threat. A chart was leaked Thursday suggesting that nine districts will be redrawn to benefit Democrats. Apparently, California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s favorite way of saying, “What you’re doing is shameful” is to do the exact same thing and do it even harder.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker hinted his openness to retaliatory gerrymandering. Currently only three of Illinois’ 17 congressional districts are held by Republicans despite 42-43% of Illinois voters voting red in the last two general elections.

Pritzker has caught grief already for his own oddly shaped congressional districts, one of which resembles not a salamander but a snake. (It wouldn’t be the first time Pritzker was associated with something that slithers, but associating him with anything skinny or long is probably a first.)

The Great Gerrymandering Fight of 2025 may heat up further before it burns out. But what has the wheels of my brain cranking is an August 7 announcement from President Donald Trump instructing the Department of Commerce to begin work on a new census, presumably referring to the 2030 decennial census.

“People who are in our Country illegally WILL NOT BE COUNTED IN THE CENSUS,” Trump wrote on social media site Truth Social. “Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

This matter has my attention, all right. My advice to President Trump would be the same I would give to each Abbott, Newsom and Pritzker about their gerrymandering spat: No, sir.

Count all noncitizens — lawful residents or not

To the president’s credit, he is referring to illegal immigrants, not temporary legal residents or green card holders. But there is no distinction of citizenship at all in the Constitution, which specifically says that the “whole number of persons in each State” must be counted in the census.

To get around that crucial detail, the Trump administration would need to litigate the issue in the court system, to which there would be a mad dash by states, government officials and advocacy groups.

Legalities aside, there would also be significant consequences to many of our social institutions if noncitizens — even just those without lawful residence — weren’t counted in the U.S. census.

Pew Research estimated that as of 2022, unauthorized immigrants make up 3.3% of the U.S. population, totaling roughly 11 million people. Should the Trump administration start deporting 3,000 per day as one adviser claimed, it would still take over a decade to remove all of them.

That means that for the foreseeable future, the U.S. population will include a significant number of illegal immigrants. Given that the most important function of census data is to determine how trillions of dollars in federal funding are distributed, excluding illegal immigrants would have a deleterious effect on how that funding is distributed.

During my two separate stints working for the 2020 census, it was impressed upon me in my training that each completed census survey carries a value of several thousand dollars in federal funds. Failing to count the “whole number of persons” translates into significant financial shortfalls for cities, states and communities.

Data and funds have deep impacts

Illegal immigrants access the same parts of society that native born and naturalized citizens do, such as health care. If the census count excludes them, local hospitals can’t know how many potential patients are in their service area. Their pool of per-person federal funding wouldn’t accurately reflect the number of patients they might have to treat, undoubtedly straining their financial resources and quality of care for everyone.

Illegal immigrants use sidewalks, roads and bridges. If census data excludes them, cities and states can’t properly plan, build or maintain those roads and bridges. Federal and state funding for those projects would be shorted.

Every child has a right to attend a K-12 public school — including illegal immigrants. If they were excluded from a census count, any funding determined based on census data would take a hit. School districts (and private schools) might not be able to accurately project growth, especially in areas with high populations of illegal immigrants.

Every person has the right to find and live in a home. But city planners who rely on census data can’t accurately project housing stock needs if all people aren’t counted. Monetary grants for residential development wouldn’t reflect the actual population of people needing homes.

Illegal immigrants eat, sleep, and bathe and raise kids like the rest of us. Without a full picture of the population from census data, grocery stores, clothing stores, home goods stores and other retailers might not be as quick to build in underserved areas. Day care shortages might not be properly addressed.

None of this is to suggest that there aren’t disadvantages to including illegal immigrants in the census — or any noncitizen, for that matter. Returning to the issue of congressional districting, the residency of illegal immigrants could impact apportionment of representatives — and, depending on where they reside, the partisanship of a district.

Illegal immigrants concentrated in blue areas

Pew research from 2019 — right before the 2020 census was conducted — found that 61% of the estimated 11 million people living in the U.S. without authorization were concentrated in 20 of the country’s metropolitan areas. The areas with the largest populations of illegal immigrants were New York City and Los Angeles, both of which are already solidly blue areas in solidly blue states.

Red states such as Florida or Texas also have pockets of deep blue. Florida’s 24th District in Miami Beach is rated by the Cook Political Report as D+18, meaning the district went for Democrats by 18 points more than the nation as a whole in 2024. Texas cities such as Houston, Austin and Dallas are rated as high as D+26.

Those deep blue districts largely overlap with the metropolitan areas where more than six in 10 unauthorized immigrants reside. The more they crowd into those deep blue metropolitan areas, the more likely the growth would warrant new or redrawn congressional districts — districts whose representatives will be chosen by loyal blue metropolitan voters, regardless of which party controls the state government.

That does present a degree of concern that counting noncitizens — legal or not — can skew partisan representation. Noncitizens do not have the legal right to vote, hold or seek elected office, serve as party delegates or participate in any other function of the political process in the United States, which is the backbone of the argument of those who contend that the U.S. census should only count citizens.

Whether noncitizens should be counted as members of the population is a debate this country had in 1787, when delegates to the Constitutional Convention from southern states wanted slaves — another group of people without legal citizenship — to count toward the overall population in order to maximize their representation in Congress. The convention eventually settled on counting three of every five slaves for the purpose of apportioning representation — and direct taxes.

What became known as the Three-Fifths Compromise gave an arguable numbers advantage to pro-slavery states, which didn’t mind having to pay more in direct taxes if it meant they could count 60% of their slaves toward their congressional representation.

I won’t go as far as to suggest that Democrats have a lot to gain from large populations of illegal immigrants — even if population trends and per-person funding in blue metro areas leave dots to be connected.

I will suggest this: Democrats and Republicans should drop their gerrymandering fights. They won’t, of course.

Meanwhile, Trump should drop the notion of excluding illegal immigrants from the next census. He won’t, of course. Good thing the Supreme Court is used to firing on all cylinders.

Comments: 319-398-8266; althea.cole@thegazette.com