The Trump administration on Wednesday formally proposed sweeping changes to the 2030 US Census that could exclude millions of people from the population count, alter congressional representation in favor of Republicans, and shift the distribution of federal resources among states. The proposal —which was published in the Federal Register…
Page F3From§Eachthe early evening edition — 9 September 2026
Administration revives 2019 census maneuver courts blocked, this time without asking the question that got it blocked
As it ran on the front
On July 2, 2019, the Justice and Commerce Departments told the country they would count the 2020 census without a citizenship question. The Supreme Court had rejected the administration's stated rationale for asking it, in Department of Commerce v. New York, and the paperwork went out the door as filed: every resident counted, foreign citizens included, because the Constitution required it.
On August 19 of this year, The Nation's Elie Mystal previewed what the next attempt would look like: not a citizenship question, but a redrawn form that stops tracking race and ethnicity while narrowing who counts at all. Three weeks later, on September 9, the administration made it formal. The Federal Register now carries a proposal that redefines "usual residence" as wherever a person legally spends the most days during the count, evidenced by tax returns and W-2s, and excludes anyone who is not a citizen or permanent resident as of April 1, 2030, from the apportionment count outright. That is a departure from the 2020 census, which counted foreign citizens living in the country regardless of status, because the Constitution required it to.…
…(cont) The public gets thirty days to comment on this one. Nobody got thirty days on the last one; the last one got a Supreme Court ruling and a public surrender, two federal departments announcing they had no question left to defend. The difference this time is that there is no question on the form to strike down. The count simply stops looking for the people it used to be constitutionally obligated to find, and reaches the same population the citizenship question was built to exclude, without ever asking it.
Common Dreams reports what the filing does once the counting stops: it can exclude millions of people from the population count, alter congressional apportionment in favor of Republicans, and shift the distribution of federal resources among states. Nobody in this filing has to name which states gain seats and which lose them. The apportionment formula does that math on its own, once the count that excluded people is finished being counted.
Hon, the thirty days of public comment start now. The clock the Supreme Court handed the last administration in 2019 has been replaced, this time, by a clock nobody at either department has to explain to a courtroom.
“They tried to ask who's a citizen, got laughed out of the Supreme Court, and figured out the fix isn't to ask better — it's to stop asking and just decide with a W-2. Same people uncounted, same seats moved, same money redirected, minus the one word that got them sued last time. Your kid's school district gets funded off a headcount that's now built to miss your neighbor.”
“This is about accuracy, not politics — tax records are more reliable than a self-reported form, that's just good data hygiene. And nobody's excluding communities, we're excluding an immigration status, which — okay, that does map onto specific communities pretty directly, but the point is it's not the citizenship question, so legally it's a completely different — did I say "different"? It's the same outcome. Forget I said that.”
The receipts
The Trump administration proposed excluding undocumented and temporary immigrants from the US census, counting only citizens and permanent residents.
The proposals for 2030 are among significant changes that would upend a process for helping allot congressional seats and shape policies that address disparities.
· The Trump Plan to Cook the Census Books from the morgue, 19 Aug 2026
· The U.S. Departments of Justice and Commerce announce that the Trump administration will not implement a proposed citizenship question in the 2020 census, and will perform the census without the quest from the morgue, 2 Jul 2019
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.