Illegal Aliens Could Have An Impact On Congressional Seats
By: Joe Murray, The Bulletin
10/04/2007

A new study released by the University of Connecticut suggests states with large illegal alien populations may be rewarded with additional congressional seats, thus substantially altering the national political landscape.

Noting the U.S. Constitution requires seats in the House of Representative be allocated according to the respective population of each state, the study reports, "the Constitution does not differentiate between citizens and non-citizens for the population count used as the basis for reapportionment. Similarly, U.S. Census Bureau policy does not distinguish between citizens and non-citizens in its population counts."

Presently, a federal statute holds there are to be 435 seats in the House.
As of 2006, the study found that there are 11.5 million illegal aliens in the country, representing 3.9 percent of the population. This number was reached by calculating information made available by the Office of Immigration Statistics.

If current illegal immigration trends hold, states in the South/Southwest stand to gain seats in the House, thus increasing their political muscle at the expense of states in the Northeast/Midwest.

According to the study, "When undocumented populations are counted, Arizona (+2), Florida (+3), and Texas (+2) gain a total of seven seats. These seven seats come at the expense of Illinois (-1), Michigan (-1), Missouri (-1), New York (-2), and Ohio (-2), which lose a total of seven seats."

Such a scenario is disturbing to Bob Dane, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform.

"Appropriation of federal funds and resources should be based upon the number of citizens, not illegal immigrants," stated Mr. Dane. The immigration reform advocate argues that it is wrong to include illegal aliens when allocating House seats, for "it gives political clout to those who have not committed to this country." Furthermore, such a framework rewards states with a high population of illegals.

"Counting illegal aliens for apportionment purposes encourages states to roll out the red carpet to illegal immigrants," commented Mr. Dane.

The study concludes, "The result of 2010 reapportionment, following Census 2010, will determine the number of seats allocated to each state and influence the boundaries of all Congressional districts- beginning with elections in November of 2012. The 113th Congress, sworn in January 2013, will be the first to reflect the new geography of the nation's population as counted in Census 2010."

Joe Murray can be reached at jmurray@thebulletin.us.
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