WASHINGTON, DC, July 21, 2020 – President Trump issued an executive order Tuesday to prohibit undocumented immigrants from being counted in the 2020 census. This is despite the Constitution’s directive that the Census count “the whole number of persons” in the country for purposes of determining representation. The executive order follows last year’s Supreme Court decision blocking the Trump administration from placing a citizenship question on the census, a scheme to intimidate undocumented individuals from responding and thereby depressing representation in traditionally Democratic strongholds.
Alliance for Justice President Nan Aron issued the following statement:
“This president will stop at nothing to erase this country’s people of color from representation in our government. This executive order, issued just days after the president was once again defending the Confederate flag, is his latest attempt to rig our country to preserve white power. Combined with his attacks to make it harder for people to vote, this smacks of a desperate appeal to his base following his unpopular handling of the coronavirus pandemic, economic fallout, police brutality, and racial equality protests. Perhaps Trump believes that the many judges he’s appointed with records opposing voting rights and immigrants’ rights will uphold his cruel efforts to count people of color out of our democracy, but he will surely lose in a direct fight with the U.S. Constitution.”