President Trump's Case For Excluding Illegal Aliens From The Census Is Stronger

[HARDCORE]

President Trump’s case for excluding illegal aliens from the Census is stronger than you think

By Robert Romano

President Donald Trump has issued an executive memorandum to Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross to discount illegal aliens who are subject to legal removal from the U.S. Census.

Here, the President is invoking the Fourteenth Amendment, Section 2 of the Constitution, which states, “Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed.”

From the President’s memorandum: “The Constitution does not specifically define which persons must be included in the apportionment base. Although the Constitution requires the ‘persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed,’ to be enumerated in the census, that requirement has never been understood to include in the apportionment base every individual physically present within a State’s boundaries at the time of the census. Instead, the term ‘persons in each State’ has been interpreted to mean that only the ‘inhabitants’ of each State should be included.”

So, who are the inhabitants of each state? The President’s memorandum says it “requires the exercise of judgment. For example, aliens who are only temporarily in the United States, such as for business or tourism, and certain foreign diplomatic personnel are ‘persons’ who have been excluded from the apportionment base in past censuses.”

Which, raises the question, if tourists — whose travel visas have certain expiration dates — can and have been excluded from the Census, then why not illegal immigrants who are subject to removal upon discovery by federal authorities?

In Burns v. Richardson (1966) the Supreme Court held that tourists and other non-permanent residents could be excluded from apportionment in the Hawaii state legislature because “Total population figures may thus constitute a substantially distorted reflection of the distribution of state citizenry,” which would have granted more representatives to Oahu than were owed under the State constitution.

The same can be said of sanctuary states like California, whose own non-legal resident populations skew the Census and award additional seats in the House to that state that would not otherwise be counted if only legal inhabitants were considered. Given that illegal immigrants are not legal residents, they are temporary migrants, they could be treated the same as tourists under the law — at least, that’s what President Trump is saying. The question is whether, like in Burns, who is being counted constitutes a “permissible population base,” in the words of the Court.

Various estimates over the years have stated that anywhere from 11 million to 30 million illegal aliens could be residing in the U.S. but nobody knows for certain. When President Trump attempted to have a question included on the Census on citizenship, the Supreme Court arbitrarily shot it down on June 27, 2019, leaving him to pursue a fallback plan.

Under a July 11, 2019 executive order, Trump instead mandated federal departments and agencies to provide records to the Department of Commerce and the U.S. Census Bureau to compile an accurate counting of citizen, legal resident and illegal alien populations for the 2020 Census — but without a citizenship question on the Census form for households to fill out.

Instead, the Trump executive order requires “All agencies shall promptly provide the Department [of Commerce] the maximum assistance permissible, consistent with law, in determining the number of citizens, non‑citizens, and illegal aliens in the country, including by providing any access that the Department may request to administrative records that may be useful in accomplishing that objective.”

In addition, the order specifically requires the following records to be furnished to the Census: “National-level file of Lawful Permanent Residents, Naturalizations” from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, “F1 & M1 Nonimmigrant Visas” from DHS and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, “National-level file of Customs and Border Arrival/Departure transaction data” from DHS, “Refugee and Asylum visas” from DHS and Department of State, Worldwide Refugee and Asylum Processing System, “National-level passport application data” from State, “Master Beneficiary Records” from the Social Security Administration and “CMS Medicaid and CHIP Information System” from the Department of Health and Human Services.

Now, Trump’s move to block illegal aliens from being counted will surely be tried against the Evenwel v. Abbott (2016) Supreme Court decision that held “As constitutional history, precedent, and practice demonstrate, a State or locality may draw its legislative districts based on total population.” Then, plaintiffs were objecting to Texas’ plan to count the total population including non-citizens, both legal and illegal, given in the Census toward legislative districts. The Supreme Court unanimously held in Texas’ favor.

And while that may seem like it might preclude what Trump is trying to do here, the question is slightly different, which is what constitutes the “total population” in each state. Is it the number persons who happen to be in each state at the time of the Census’ taking? Or the number of inhabitants, as Trump suggests? And who decides who is an inhabitant?

Here, Trump shows that past presidents have made the ultimate determination, excluding tourists and also sometimes excluding overseas military personnel and sometimes including them.

From the memorandum, “the Constitution also has never been understood to exclude every person who is not physically ‘in’ a State at the time of the census. For example, overseas Federal personnel have, at various times, been included in and excluded from the populations of the States in which they maintained their homes of record. The discretion delegated to the executive branch to determine who qualifies as an ‘inhabitant’ includes authority to exclude from the apportionment base aliens who are not in a lawful immigration status.”

So, Trump wishes to separate out citizens and legal residents from those here either on temporary visas or are here illegally. That’s different from what the Supreme Court decided in 2016.

The case is stronger than you think. If persons with temporary travel visas have been excluded constitutionally in past Censuses, then why should persons who overstay those travel visas be included? The same can be said for illegal aliens subject to deportation who never had a visa to begin with. If tourists and visa overstayers aren’t included, then neither should illegal aliens be included.

Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government.

To view online: http://dailytorch.com/2020/07/presid...han-you-think/

[Boats]

Most of the 23 million immigrants eligible to vote in 2020 election live in just five states
By: LUIS NOE-BUSTAMANTE & ABBY BUDIMAN Pew Research News - 03-03-20
Re: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tan...t-five-states/

Photo link: https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-conte...resize=640,360
California is home to more immigrant eligible voters than any other state. Above, voters in Los Angeles prepare their ballots on March 1 during early voting for the presidential primary. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

About one-in-ten people eligible to vote in this year’s U.S. presidential election are immigrants. And most (61%) of these 23 million naturalized citizens live in just five states.

California has more immigrant eligible voters (5.5 million) than any other state, more than New York (2.5 million) and Florida (2.5 million) combined. Texas and New Jersey round out the top five, with 1.8 million and 1.2 million immigrant eligible voters, respectively.

Here is a closer look at immigrant eligible voters in these five states.

#1 - Asians make up 43% of immigrant eligible voters in California, the highest of any racial or ethnic group. Nationally, Latinos make up a higher share of immigrant eligible voters than Asians (34% vs. 31%), but the reverse is true in the Golden State, where many Latino immigrants are ineligible to vote because they do not hold U.S. citizenship.

California’s immigrant eligible voters come from many countries. But three origin countries account for 46% of the total: Mexico (1.5 million immigrant eligible voters), the Philippines (604,000 voters) and Vietnam (430,000 voters).

The vast majority of California’s immigrant eligible voters (75%) have lived in the United States for more than 20 years. The share is highest (82%) among California’s Latino immigrant voters. Smaller majorities of Asian (71%), white (71%) and black (59%) immigrant eligible voters in California have lived in the country for at least two decades. English proficiency varies widely among the state’s immigrant eligible voters. For example, 86% of black immigrant eligible voters in California are English proficient, a substantially higher share than among all the state’s immigrant eligible voters (55%).

#2 - New York stands out for the racial and ethnic diversity of its immigrant eligible voters. Asians (26%), Latinos (25%) and whites (25%) make up similar shares of the state’s immigrant eligible voters, while black immigrants (21%) are a slightly lower share.

When it comes to speaking English, black immigrant eligible voters in New York are substantially more likely to be English proficient (89%) than white (66%), Asian (52%) and Latino (47%) immigrant voters.

In New York, no single birth country accounts for a large share of the state’s immigrant eligible voters; about a quarter of foreign-born voters come from the state’s three largest birth countries. Immigrants from the Dominican Republic are the largest single group, with 264,000 eligible voters, followed by China (207,000) and Jamaica (143,000).

#3 - Latinos make up 54% of Florida’s immigrant eligible voters, far higher than the shares of white, black and Asian immigrant voters in the state (17%, 16% and 10% respectively).

Florida’s immigrant voters have varying levels of English proficiency. For example, around half (51%) of Latino immigrant eligible voters are proficient in English, a far lower share than among white (82%) or black (81%) immigrant voters.

With 606,000 voters, Cuban immigrants are the largest group in Florida’s foreign-born electorate. Colombian immigrants, at 190,000, and Haitian immigrants, at 187,000, are the second- and third-largest groups.

#4 - Texas rivals Florida in its share of Hispanic immigrant voters. Roughly half (52%) of all immigrant eligible voters in Texas are Hispanic, a share that trails only Florida (54%) among the top states. Asian immigrants are the second-largest group in Texas at 29%.

Around seven-in-ten immigrant voters in Texas (68%) have lived in the U.S. for more than two decades, similar to the share among all U.S. immigrant voters (68%). However, the share of long-term residents is notably lower among black immigrant voters in Texas (40%).

A high share of black and white immigrant voters in Texas are English proficient (88% and 85%, respectively). Lower shares of Asian (64%) and Hispanic (47%) immigrant voters are proficient. This is similar to the pattern nationally.

By country of birth, Mexican immigrants alone account for 40% of all immigrant voters in Texas, or 736,000 people. The second-largest group, with 130,000 voters, are immigrants from Vietnam, while Indian immigrants, with 115,000 voters, make up the third-largest group in the state.

#5 - New Jersey has a high share of Asian immigrant voters with a college degree. About two-thirds of Asian immigrant voters in New Jersey (66%) have a bachelor’s degree or higher. That’s substantially higher than the share among other immigrant voter groups in the state and the share among immigrant voters in the U.S. overall (36%), including those who are Asian.

Among New Jersey’s 1.2 million immigrant eligible voters, 32% are Latino, 30% are Asian, 25% are white and 11% are black.

Meanwhile, the top birth countries for immigrant eligible voters in New Jersey are India (122,000 voters), the Dominican Republic (103,000) and the Philippines (63,000).

Note: Several charts are available on site only.