The battle over the illegal immigration-related Equal Representation Act, a GOP-backed bill, has big implications for the future of the country.
The bill considered in the House this week would add a citizenship question to future census counts while preventing noncitizens from being counted in House of Representatives and Electoral College apportionment.
While not immediate, the impact of the bill could be enormous, as it could swing control of the House or even the outcome of a U.S. presidential election following the 2030 census.
“Incentivizing illegal immigration and exploiting our democracy to skew the number of congressional seats or electoral votes for the presidency is immoral and a sure path to the downfall of our nation,” Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-NC) said when he dropped the bill, known as H.R. 7109, in late January. “Only American citizens can vote, and only American citizens should be counted when determining federal representation.”
Edwards and co-sponsor Warren Davidson (R-OH) argue that apportioning representation to illegal immigrants rewards “the Biden administration‘s open border policies” and creates an incentive to bring more noncitizens into the country.
But the 14th Amendment reads that the House will “be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state,” making no mention of legal or voting status.
President Joe Biden highlighted that fact in a statement of opposition to the bill.
“The Biden-Harris Administration is committed to ensuring that the census remains as accurate as possible and free from political interference, and to upholding the longstanding principle of equal representation enshrined in our Constitution, census statutes, and historical tradition,” it read.
Political fights over the act indicate that it would help blue states and cities more than red ones, and the data appear to bear that out.
While there is no way to accurately measure how many illegal immigrants are living in each state, a 2020 estimate from the Center for Immigration Studies found that apportioning representatives based only on U.S. citizens would have a net positive effect for the GOP.
Of the 26 seats that would be gained in a citizen-only census, 24 are from states that backed former President Donald Trump in 2016, while of the states that gain seats if illegal immigrants are included, 19 are from solidly blue states.
Gains would be mixed overall, as among the 10 states estimated to have the highest unauthorized population, four (Texas, Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina) lean red.
The data at the House district level are more direct.
Per a 2020 CIS analysis, of the 29 House districts where at least 1-in-5 adults is not a U.S. citizen, only one is represented by a Republican. Of the 108 districts in which less than 3% of adults are not citizens, 87 are represented by a Republican.
As a result, redistricting that reflected only citizens would likely lead to a net gain in Republican-leaning House districts.
But another important factor for the bill’s advocates is that it would remove an incentive for sanctuary jurisdiction to attract undocumented migrants in the first place, according to CIS fellow and former immigration Judge Art Arthur.
“The perverse incentive [current census policy] creates is probably one of the biggest issues,” he said. “I can safely state that sanctuary policies themselves create a magnet for illegal immigration.”
As with most immigration-related battles, this one is not new.
The Trump administration attempted to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census only to have that effort tossed out by the Supreme Court.
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Democratic-led states had argued the question would discourage immigrants from completing the census and thus make the count less accurate.
Trump was upset about the decision, posting on X, “Can anyone really believe that as a great Country, we are not able to ask whether or not someone is a Citizen. Only in America!” With Biden poised to block H.R. 7109 even if it passes, that state of affairs is likely to remain in place for now.
