WASHINGTON, D.C. – The United States Supreme Court has agreed to issue a ruling on a plan by President Donald Trump that could potentially remove millions of undocumented immigrants from census numbers used to determine the number of seats in Congress, according to reports.
A lower court in Manhattan ruled against Trump last month, calling the plan “unlawful.” Both legal and illegal U.S. residents have been figured into census numbers ever since the census was first introduced in 1790. The census is used to determine the number of seats in the House of Representatives each state has, based on population.
The Trump Administration insists that the president does possess the power to alter the census in such a manner, according to a statement issued by acting Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall.
“As history, precedent, and structure indicate, the President need not treat all illegal aliens as ‘inhabitants’ of the States and thereby allow their defiance of federal law to distort the allocation of the people’s Representatives,” he said.
Certain Democratic states that are home to large numbers of illegal immigrants, including New York and California, could potentially lose seats in Congress if the Supreme Court rules in favor of Trump. However, it may be too late for Trump’s case to proceed, as the Census Bureau has announced that they may not be able to make the Dec. 31 deadline for the delivery of the current 2020 census numbers to the President; in turn, Trump is bound by law to deliver the final census numbers to Congress by early January.
If a SCOTUS ruling is not reached by then, Trump will lose by default as the incoming administration of President-Elect Joe Biden comes into power, which almost certainly would not pursue the census matter further.
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