WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump is expected to soon issue an executive order that would ban undocumented immigrants from being included in the 2020 census count of every person living in the United States, a source familiar with the matter said on Friday.
The source, speaking on condition of anonymity, had no details of the order.
The government’s census count helps in determining where taxpayer money is spent for building public facilities like schools, hospitals and fire departments, as well as calculating states’ apportionment in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Trump last year retreated from adding a question on citizenship to the 2020 census after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against his administration, which had said new data on citizenship would help to better enforce the Voting Rights Act, which protects minority rights. The court ruled that the rationale was “contrived.”
(Reporting by Steve Holland; Editing by Leslie Adler)
