Trump’s Fight to Keep Non-Citizens off Voter Rolls Reignites in Second Term

President Trump’s battle to keep illegal aliens off voter rolls began near the end of his first term and will likely come hurtling back in the near future.

This from justthenews.com.

The Supreme Court has never made a determination on the legal merits of the argument that noncitizens should not be counted in the United States census, but may soon be forced to do so.

According to White House deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller:

Miller indicated last month he is eager to dive straight in and that Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick will help lead the effort.

The president has at his disposal a number of avenues to accomplish his goal, one of which includes Lutnick’s agency.

Utilizing this route, the Commerce Department could propose adding a census question to distinguish citizens, legal permanent residents, and unauthorized immigrants, as suggested by a lawsuit filed by Republican-led states and the Department of Commerce in January 2025.

The data could then be used to exclude noncitizens from apportionment, though not necessarily from the overall count.

Republican support for this approach is growing, with bills introduced by Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-NC) and Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN) to mandate a citizenship question and thus exclude noncitizens from apportionment. A GOP-controlled Congress could facilitate approval of such questions, due by 2028. The Supreme Court’s 2019 ruling rejected the citizenship question due to procedural issues, and demanded a stronger justification for having the case reviewed by the Supreme Court before going to the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

Furthermore, Trump could work with Congress to pass legislation amending the Census Act to exclude noncitizens from apportionment counts or mandate a citizenship question. Bills like those proposed by Edwards and Hagerty aim to achieve this, but such legislation would need to redefine “persons” in the 14th Amendment’s apportionment clause to exclude noncitizens, a significant departure from historical practice. It could also direct the Census Bureau to use citizen-only data for apportionment. With a Republican-controlled Congress, the winds are now more favorable. Passage is significantly more likely than in 2020, when a similar House bill passed on a party-line vote (206-202) but stalled in the communist/globalist-controlled Senate.

President Donald Trump, on his first day in office, rescinded an Obiden Regime executive order on January 20, 2025, which had reaffirmed counting all residents regardless of immigration status, signaling intent to revisit this policy. With a GOP-controlled Congress, there may be less political resistance to try again. Additionally, preparations for the 2030 census will begin during Trump’s second term, and federal law requires proposed census questions to be submitted to Congress two years prior, which gives a window to influence the process.

Estimates of illegal alien populations vary due to inconsistent methods and tracking, but based on the most reliable and recent data from multiple sources including the Department of Homeland Security, the state with the highest number of illegal aliens is California, with 2.6 million. Texas took the number two spot with 2.06 million, and Florida comes in at third with 560,000.

New York (with 540,000) and New Jersey (with 440,000) round off the top five. Despite the influx of illegal aliens to California, it lost a congressional seat due to the number of residents fleeing the state. The Orange County Register reported that California lost 817,669 residents in 2023 for a net outmigration of 341,866 citizens.