Thread: Alabama sues federal government for counting illegal immigrants in Census (update)

by Melissa Quinn
| May 22, 2018 01:23 PM


Alabama’s attorney general and one of its Republican congressman are suing the federal government over a practice that allows illegal immigrants to be counted in the census.

The lawsuit filed Tuesday by state Attorney General Steve Marshall and Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., challenges the Census Bureau rule and argues the measure will cause Alabama to lose a congressional seat and an electoral vote after the 2020 Census to a “state with a larger illegal alien population.”

“Congressional seats should be apportioned based on the population of American citizens, not illegal aliens,” Brooks said in a statement. “After all, this is America, not the United Nations.”

Brooks warned that the loss of one Alabama congressional seat could be a “huge loss in Alabama’s political influence” and diminish both the state’s influence in Congress, as well as “its importance in presidential elections.”

Alabama claims in its lawsuit against the Commerce Department and Census Bureau that the practice of including illegal immigrants in the census count violates the 14th Amendment and the government’s constitutional obligation to conduct an “actual Enumeration” of the number of people in each state.

Brooks and Marshall are asking the court to declare the practice unconstitutional and cite current federal statutes, which “require a census enumeration of the total of legally present resident population of the United States.”

“Alabama’s loss will be another state’s gain, as states with a growing illegal alien population will be the beneficiary of this reapportionment,” Marshall said.

The lawsuit claims Louisiana, Missouri, and Ohio each lost one congressional seat and one vote in the electoral college following the 2010 Census, which included illegal immigrants in the apportionment base. California, meanwhile, gained two seats in the House of Representatives, and Florida and Texas each gained one.

If those in the country illegally are included in the apportionment calculation following the 2020 Census, Alabama officials warned Ohio will also lose a congressional seat and electoral vote.

The Census Bureau says it seeks to count every person in the U.S. in the place where he or she lives in the 2020 census.

As the federal government prepares for the upcoming Census, it is also facing a lawsuit from more than a dozen states over a citizenship question that is to be added to the census. The coalition of states are seeking to prevent the Trump administration from including the question in the 2020 Census.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/n...ants-in-census