US President Donald Trump signed a memorandum Tuesday ordering undocumented migrants not be counted in the 2020 census for purposes of seat reapportionment in the House of Representatives.
The order, which immediately prompted legal challenges, is Trump’s latest effort to clampdown on immigration in the US ahead of the November election.
“WE SHOULD NOT GIVE POLITICAL POWER TO PEOPLE WHO SHOULD NOT BE HERE”
It comes in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision last year to bar him from adding a citizenship question to the survey that is given every 10 years, calling his rationale apparently “contrived.”
Trump said his order is pushback against what he calls the “radical left,” falsely accusing liberals of “trying to erase the existence of” citizenship and attempting to “conceal the number of illegal aliens in our country.”
“This is all part of a broader left-wing effort to erode the rights of Americans citizens, and I will not stand for it,” Trump said in a statement. “Just as we do not give political power to people who are here temporarily, we should not give political power to people who should not be here at all.”
Trump said in his order that “respect for the law and protection of the integrity of the democratic process warrant the exclusion of illegal aliens from the apportionment base, to the extent feasible and to the maximum extent of the President’s discretion under the law.”