U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday called for a new national census that would exclude undocumented immigrants, intensifying a growing partisan fight over redistricting ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
In a social media post, Trump said he wanted a “new and highly accurate” count based on unspecified “modern day facts and figures” from the 2024 election, declaring: “People who are in our Country illegally WILL NOT BE COUNTED IN THE CENSUS.”
The U.S. Constitution has required a census every 10 years since 1790, counting the “whole number of persons in each state”, a definition that includes undocumented immigrants. The next official census is due in 2030, although preparatory work is already underway. Trump did not clarify whether he was proposing to replace the regular population count or to conduct a separate survey earlier.
The decennial census determines how many seats each state gets in the U.S. House of Representatives, how votes are apportioned in the Electoral College, and how trillions of federal dollars are distributed. The Pew Research Center estimates that excluding undocumented immigrants from the 2020 count would have cost California, Florida, and Texas one House seat each.
Trump made similar efforts during his first term, including adding a citizenship question, but was blocked by the Supreme Court, which declined to decide whether unauthorized migrants could be excluded.
His renewed push comes as Texas Republicans seek to pass a new congressional map that could give the party as many as five additional House seats in 2026. More than 50 Texas Democratic lawmakers have fled to other Democratic-led states to prevent a quorum, prompting Republican threats of arrest. U.S. Senator John Cornyn has asked the FBI to assist in tracking them down.
Republican governors in other states, including Ohio, Missouri, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Florida, are also exploring new maps to shore up the party’s narrow House majority. Vice President JD Vance met Thursday with Indiana Governor Mike Braun to discuss adding another Republican seat there, while Politico reports the GOP could secure up to 10 new seats nationwide through aggressive mid-cycle redistricting.
Democrats have vowed to retaliate with gerrymanders of their own in New York and California. In Illinois, Democratic Governor JB Pritzker has deployed state police to protect the Texas Democrats, who were evacuated from a suburban Chicago hotel Wednesday after an unspecified threat.
Republican congressman Kevin Kiley has introduced legislation to ban mid-decade redistricting, warning that aggressive partisan map-making could backfire on the GOP in states controlled by Democrats.
Written By Rodney Mbua
