Attorney General Clark Joins Multistate Coalition Condemning Trump Administration’s Threats to Accurate 2030 Census

Attorney General Charity Clark today joined a coalition of 24 attorneys general and two governors in submitting a comment letter strongly opposing the Trump Administration's proposed changes to the 2030 Census. A proposed rule by the U.S. Census Bureau would upend the upcoming 2030 Census by, among other things, excluding millions of noncitizens and prohibiting questions about race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. Among other harms, these changes would undermine the accuracy of the census, put communities at risk of losing political representation, and threaten access to critical federal funding.

In the comment letter, Attorney General Clark and the coalition argue that the proposed rule would:

• Unlawfully exclude millions of immigrants from the census count, including undocumented immigrants, people on temporary visas (such as temporary work visas, student visas, and exchange visitor visas), refugees, asylum seekers, and even certain U.S. nationals. The coalition argues that these exclusions violate the Fourteenth Amendment's requirement to count all persons for congressional apportionment and the Census Act, which requires the Census Bureau to report each state's total population for determining its share of congressional seats.

• Undermine critical demographic data that states rely on to serve their communities by prohibiting questions about race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation, depriving states of critical data they rely on to shape public policy, identify disparities, evaluate government programs, enforce antidiscrimination laws, and support research. The decennial census has collected demographic information, including about race, since 1790.

• Jeopardize census accuracy by abandoning the longstanding usual residence standard. Since the first census in 1790, the census has counted people at their usual residence - where they typically live and sleep. The proposal would abandon that longstanding principle in favor of a new test based on where people lawfully spend the greatest number of days between January 3 and April 1, while also relying on tax records as evidence of residency. This could result in people being counted in vacation homes, workplaces, or other places where they do not ordinarily live, distorting state population counts and the apportionment of political representation.

In submitting today's comment letter, Attorney General Clark joins the attorneys general of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawai'i, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia as well as the governors of the Commonwealths of Kentucky and Pennsylvania.