With preparations for the 2030 census already underway, Trump said Thursday he has instructed his administration to start work on a “new” census.

According to a social media post by Trump, that census would exclude millions of people living in the country without legal status — an unprecedented change to how the country has conducted population tallies since the first U.S. census in 1790.

The 14th Amendment requires the “whole number of persons in each state” to be included in a key set of census numbers used to determine how presidents and members of Congress are elected.

  • dhork@lemmy.worldEnglish
    7·
    3 days ago

    Actually, it is not optional. Kinda sorta.

    https://www.aclu.org/documents/frequently-asked-questions-national-census

    It is required by law that all persons residing in the United States on April 1, 2020 respond to the Census, and it is important for democracy to obtain an accurate count of everybody.

    However, I haven’t found any information saying that there is any penalty at all for not filling it out, or not answering every question. Since the important thing would be to enumerate residents, if any citizenship question appears in the 2030 census I will leave it blank, even if it means I have to mail in the paper form to do it…