POLITICS & GOVERNMENT

Proposed census rules could change how many North Carolinians are counted

By Richard Stradling Updated October 2, 2026 2:40 PM Gift Article



Fayetteville Street in Downtown Raleigh on April 25, 2026, for the second day of Brewgaloo, a beer festival organized by Shop Local Raleigh. Jessica Banov jbanov@newsobserver.com
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RALEIGH

The Trump administration has proposed several changes to the 2030 census that would limit who can be counted in North Carolina and reduce the demographic information collected by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Critics say the administration’s proposal would short-change communities with international students and large immigrant populations. They say it also would stop the government from collecting important information about race, ethnicity and sexual orientation during the nationwide count done every decade.

The regulations would radically change the census in 2030 and beyond, says John Quinterno, the governor’s census liaison and state data center coordinator at the Office of State Budget and Management.

“If the decennial census is like a family portrait that’s taken on Census Day, the rules shape how the picture looks and how accurate it is,” Quinterno said in an interview. “These changes would alter the portrait of North Carolina by omitting some people entirely, putting others in the wrong place, photoshopping or erasing others out after the fact and blurring the picture.“

The U.S. Census Bureau will accept feedback on the proposals through Oct. 13 at www.regulations.gov/document/USBC-2026-0628-0001. The agency had received more than 21,000 comments as of Friday, Oct. 2.

The U.S. Constitution requires the government to conduct the census every 10 years to determine how many representatives each state should have in Congress. The data is also used to determine how hundreds of billions of dollars in federal taxes are distributed among the states. State and local governments use the information for all sorts of purposes, including how to draw districts for elected officials.

The constitution requires the government to count “the whole number of persons in each state.” Traditionally that has meant people living in a place regardless of their citizenship status. Immigrants with or without visas were counted; U.S. citizens living overseas were not, unless they served in the military or worked for the federal government.

Now the Trump administration wants to limit the count to U.S. citizens and “lawful permanent residents,” such as immigrants with green cards. That would leave out foreign students, people with work visas and “illegal aliens,” groups whose legal status is “less durable,” the Census Bureau says, and are “not true inhabitants, members of the body politic, or persons with a ‘usual residence’ in the United States due to their lack of a sufficient tie and allegiance to the United States.”

The N.C. Counts Coalition, established in 2017 by dozens of organizations to support a complete census, says leaving out noncitizens would provide an inaccurate picture of how many people live in North Carolina.

“Our neighbors, colleagues and friends who are undocumented or on temporary work or student visas could live, work, study and build their lives here but would not count toward representation” in Congress, wrote Stacey Carless, the executive director.

The change could also skew population numbers within North Carolina. The coalition says the state is home to more than 24,000 international students and hundreds of thousands of others who might not be counted under the proposed changes. Leaving them out would reduce the official population of the places where they live.

Towns such as Chapel Hill, with a population of about 64,000, could see a significant difference in its census tally, said Quinterno.

“If you were to start omitting your international students on valid visas, the town’s population would be smaller,” he said. “Just because we may not want to count those people for apportionment purposes, they still live in Chapel Hill. They still drive on the streets, still have jobs, contribute to the economy, work at the university.”

Census proposes eliminating questions about race and ethnicity

Since the first census in 1790, the government has used the tally to collect information on the demographics of the population. Questions have varied over the years, but at various times the government asked about the age, sex, education, occupation, family status, ethnicity and race of people in each household.

Under the proposed rules, the Census Bureau would continue to ask about sex, date of birth and family relationships but would no longer ask about race, ethnicity or sexual orientation — characteristics the Census Bureau proposal calls “immaterial” to the main goal of the decennial census.

Leaving such potentially sensitive questions out of the census would likely increase the response rate, the bureau argues, and reduce the likelihood that someone’s individual information could be gleaned from the published data. The bureau says it will continue to collect information on race, ethnicity and sexual orientation through the American Community Survey and other surveys that poll a sample of the population.

But those surveys are no substitute for the decennial census, the nation’s most complete population count, says Nathan Dollar, director of Carolina Demography at UNC Chapel Hill. The Census Bureau would stop collecting comprehensive race and ethnicity data used in all sorts of other surveys and research, including annual population estimates made by the bureau itself, Dollar said in an interview.

“It really imperils the whole population scientific endeavor,” he said. “Every professional organization that represents population scientists has come out in opposition to these proposed changes.”

It’s not clear how the proposed changes to the 2030 census would affect North Carolina’s representation in Congress.

Two years ago, the Center for Immigration Studies, an independent research organization, published a report that concluded North Carolina would have gained a 15th congressional seat in 2020 had immigration of all kinds not swelled state populations elsewhere. This week, though, The New York Times published an analysis that found that North Carolina was not among the six states that would lose or gain a House seat as a result of the Trump administration’s proposal to exclude noncitizens.

But Quinterno said other factors complicate those predictions. For example, the Trump administration is proposing to use tax records and other government data to determine residency, which could change where students and others are counted. Members of the military based in North Carolina, for example, could be counted elsewhere if they choose to pay taxes in their home state.

“Those are people who live here, use services, drive on the roads, potentially use the schools, but they would not be counted here,” Quinterno said. “And what would the impact be on funding for those communities?”

This story was originally published October 2, 2026 at 12:52 PM.

Proposed census rules would change who is counted in NC | Raleigh News & Observer