The U.S. Census Bureau needs major reforms before the 2030 Census begins to ensure public confidence in an accurate count. Errors in the 2020 count have distorted congressional representation, Electoral College votes, state legislative redistricting, and the formulas used to distribute billions of dollars in federal funding.
Every ten years, the U.S. Census counts the nation's population to determine how seats in the U.S. House of Representatives are apportioned among the states. In 1960, without an act of Congress, the Census Bureau-crats removed the citizenship question from the form sent to every household, resulting in non-citizens being included in the population totals used for congressional apportionment.
The impact also extends beyond seats in Congress. Each state's number of U.S. Representatives, combined with its two U.S. Senators, determines its number of Electoral College votes, which elect the President.
The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), a Washington-based think tank focused on immigration data and policy, analyzed the impact of legal and illegal immigration on our most recent Census in 2020 and projected its potential effect on the upcoming 2030 tally. The 2020 Census numbered the population at more than 331 million people.
In its 2024 report, Tilting the Balance, CIS found that excluding non-citizens reduces that figure to about 308.3 million. Excluding both non-citizens and their minor children reduces it further to about 301.9 million. In other words, nearly 30 million non-citizens and their minor children were included in the congressional apportionment. The report includes a full explanation of its methodology.
“The non-citizen population is comprised of illegal aliens, green card holders, guest workers, foreign students who all get counted in the Census,” said Dr. Stephen Camarota, Director of Research for CIS. “The impact on political redistribution between and within states, is directly proportional to its scale. The more legal immigration you have, the more temporary immigration you have, and the more illegal immigration you have, the more it redistributes political power.”
Camarota also pointed to illegal immigration and sanctuary cities distorting the representative balance.
“Another thing that really matters is distribution,” Camarota continued. “Illegal immigration redistributes political power away from areas that are comprised largely of citizens to areas where illegal immigrants and other non-citizens are concentrated because the Census currently counts everyone.”
The CIS projection for the 2030 Census was nearly 40 million non-citizens included in the count, which is more people than any one state in the entire country. Keep in mind the estimate was done in 2024 prior to Joe Biden encouraging tens of millions more illegal aliens to come across our southern border unabated.
Counting non-citizens is only one of several major problems affecting the accuracy of the Census. The Center for Renewing America (CRA), a pro-America think tank, is bringing other problems to light in a push for Census reforms it says should be made now as planning for the 2030 Census moves forward.
CRA primarily advocates restoring the direct citizenship question to the Census so citizens and noncitizens can be accurately identified in the count. It also calls for ending differential privacy, a data-masking method that obscures the accuracy of rural redistricting counts due to privacy concerns from the inclusion of data generated by questions in the basic Census form that are unnecessary to an accurate count.
CRA further recommends republishing the 2020 Census to reassess and correct political and operational errors whilerestoring the Count Question Resolution process so state and local governments can formally challenge and correct Census tabulations. They suggest the creation of an independent Office of General Counsel within the Census Bureau to investigate questionable practices and restructure bureau leadership to improve accountability moving forward.
The Census Bureau in 2022 admitted there were flaws in the 2020 Census, yet the Biden Administration failed to fully explain or correct undercounts and overcounts which shifted a net six congressional seats from Republican to Democrat states. The State Freedom Caucus Network is also exploring state-level legislative solutions to Census inaccuracies that have eroded public confidence.
“The U.S. Constitution requires state legislative districts to have substantially equal populations,” said Andy Roth, President of the State Freedom Caucus Network. “It does not require states to use federal Census data when drawing those districts. If the DC Swamp cannot produce an accurate count, the states must find solutions to ensure the integrity of their own legislative maps.”
For thousands of years, rulers have counted populations for the purpose of finding out how many people are subjected to their authority. Pharaohs counted people to collect taxes and grain. Kings counted them to tax their subjects and to raise armies. Under a tyrant, the count serves the ruler.
By requiring an "actual Enumeration" of we the people in Article I, Section 2, Clause 3 of the Constitution, the American Founders transformed this ancient instrument of state power into a safeguard of representative government. The purpose of the U.S. Census is not meant to determine how many subjects a government could rule but how many citizens our electedgovernment must represent.
The Census Bureau has been without a Senate-confirmed director since Biden’s appointee resigned in early 2025. To restore public confidence, a new director must quickly take the reins to implement the reforms needed for an accurate 2030 Census, leaving ample time for the inevitable leftist lawfare to run its course before the count begins.
