With preparations for the 2030 census already underway, Trump said Thursday he has instructed his administration to start work on a “new” census.

According to a social media post by Trump, that census would exclude millions of people living in the country without legal status — an unprecedented change to how the country has conducted population tallies since the first U.S. census in 1790.

The 14th Amendment requires the “whole number of persons in each state” to be included in a key set of census numbers used to determine how presidents and members of Congress are elected.

  • originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com
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    they spent the last 2 decades whining that everything that happens that they dont like is because ‘political’ reasons… ‘you cant prosecute me for that, its just political!’

    and then they go and prove the fact that every accusation is an admission of guilt by actually making non-political stuff political.

    we need to stop calling them republicans and lay it out… youre fascists. they want an oligarchical fascist dictatorship just like fucking russia you pieces of shit.

    republicans are anti-democracy

    • onslaught545@lemmy.zip
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      Illegal immigration is absolutely something that needs to be handled politically.

      But the answer is to change the laws to make the path to citizenship easier.

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        sure, but its also an incredibly minor issue that has somehow taken over every aspect of the government costing us hundreds of billions of dollars for literally no returned value.

        its like these assholes who rage-vote because they hate trans people when less than 1 tenth of 1 percent of the country identifies as such.

        its a full on waste of time and money but no one seems to care because the largest swath of elected officials are here to grift and not govern

      • dhork@lemmy.world
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        They tried to handle it politically. The Senate spent a lot of time on compromise immigration legislation last year, only to have Trump call up Republican Senators and say “You can’t fix this right now, I need to run on how broken it is!”

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    Ok I think people are missing the point here. This is the pretext to send ICE door to door to interrogate people, and you’d better believe they’ll be asking about political affiliation, sexual orientation, etc…

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      I mean maybe but the reasoning is dumber than that. There aren’t 65 million illegals here and a census would prove that to be so, whereas if you just don’t count them on purpose you can just say there are however many you’d like.

    • Gerudo@lemmy.zip
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      Exactly the first thing that came to my mind. It would give all those ICE fucks an actual job to do with bonus kidnappings!

      • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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        Remember how the mouth-breathers were busy saying how Obama was going to do Evil Things ™ with the census back in 2010?

        Every accusation from these dumbasses is a confession.

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    What’s the point of this even? Riiiiight if I close my eyes it’s not there. But on a systemic level. And in the meantime, give ICE a bigger budget than the FBI.

    💩🤡🇺🇸🤡🇺🇸🤡💩

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        24 hours ago

        Yes, but so is the house of rep allocation. And the info is used in redistricting. The goal is to cause blue areas to lose seats and red areas to gain seats.

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          How would that work? Rural areas actually have a lot of immigrants. I live in a rural area and it’s probably 20% immigrants. This seems like it would hurt rural areas more than the blue cities.

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            … you think racists think things through? I was relaying their dumbass logic, not what would actually happen.

            • SupraMario@lemmy.world
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              Lol fair enough, I feel like it’s the same people who use undocumented workers are now surprised that the guy who ran on deporting everyone who isn’t a white male is deporting their income at this point. The complete stupidity of the right-wing is just baffling.

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    Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.

    Population count for representation is explicitly not based in citizenship per the US constitution, but free people in the district. This is yet another illegal power grab.

    • dhork@lemmy.world
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      The SCOTUS will undoubtedly come and say some bullshit like “The founders obviously meant “free people” to only include US citizens, because they didn’t explicitly say foreigners were included”…

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        Right, “originalism” really means “I can interpret this however it benefits the reactionary right.”

        • dhork@lemmy.world
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          It means “We fetishize a bunch of old, dead white men. Since we can’t ask them their opinions on things anymore, we will project our views onto them in a desperate attempt to gain legitimacy.”

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        SCOTUS refused to take up a similar case in 2020, saying that it was “premature.”

        So I guess that means it’ll be A OK this time.

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    It’s not unprecedented, he tried this last time, and the courts stopped him. Now there are more Trumpy judges, though, so we’ll see what tortured logic the Supreme Court uses to back him his time.

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      Going to be hilarious when they do this and it ends up hurting Florida and Texas the most. They’ll end up losing a ton of congressional seats, mostly out of Republican controlled areas. They’ll have to scramble to redistrict again to keep their gerrymandering going.

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      You’re missing the point.

      The purpose of the census is to determine how many people are living in each district, which in turn, will determine funding, etc.

      We are explicitly supposed to count every single person, not just citizens, because what we really want is just accurate data about how many people live in x district. Because things like basic infrastructure is used by everyone, not just citizens (and other various reasons).

      By only counting citizens, they are purposely undercounting in areas with immigrant communities so that they will receive less funding, etc., than they are meant to receive.

      Trump tried to do this already during his first term, and it was shot down in court. SCOTUS refused to take up the case, saying that it would be “premature” for them to rule on the case at that time. Whatever the fuck that means.

      So my guess is that it’ll work this time.

      • HobbitFoot @thelemmy.club
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        And going back to the 3/5 Compromise, the Founding Fathers had intended to count non-citizens from the beginning; with free residents being counted at a 1:1 ratio and slaves counted at a 3:5 ratio.

        It is also important that the line was drawn at residents instead of citizens since states were given wide domain over additional people who could vote. The Federal Government had minimums, but no maximum until what has been recently proposed.

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        Oh, yeah, I’m a big fan of the census when done properly. But they’re throwing integrity out the window for all the reasons you just stated. So I’m not going to let their racist census reflect reality. “But you’ll get less resources from the government” I live in Denver, they’ll find a reason to screw us over anyway. Like the Brazilian president, I will not humiliate myself by meeting with Trump where he’s at.

        • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          It’s just a very ineffective, if not completely counter-productive way to protest it. All you’d be doing by ignoring the census, is furthering the GOP’s goals. Why would you do that.

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            You know what’d be ineffective? Filling out a fascist census and sending it in unchallenged. I’d rather commit to malicious compliance than straight up compliance.

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              What you’re suggesting is completely self-defeating.

              You do you, but it is just irrational. The logic is unsound, and you’re only helping the fascists.

              • WhatIfEmpathy@lemmy.today
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                So we hand over the data willingly? That’s not self defeating? Instead the right thing to do is give this regime quality data? They’re rewriting the data on climate change, I don’t expect them to use this data reasonably either.

                The only reason he cares about a 2030 census is he still thinks he’ll be in power. If he is, I don’t think what I put on the census will really matter.

    • dhork@lemmy.world
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      Actually, it is not optional. Kinda sorta.

      https://www.aclu.org/documents/frequently-asked-questions-national-census

      It is required by law that all persons residing in the United States on April 1, 2020 respond to the Census, and it is important for democracy to obtain an accurate count of everybody.

      However, I haven’t found any information saying that there is any penalty at all for not filling it out, or not answering every question. Since the important thing would be to enumerate residents, if any citizenship question appears in the 2030 census I will leave it blank, even if it means I have to mail in the paper form to do it…

    • Maeve@kbin.earth
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      It’s not optional. https://legalinsights.us/do-you-have-to-fill-out-the-census-legal-requirements-explained/

      Every ten years, households across the United States receive a request to complete the U.S. Census—a nationwide count shaping political representation and federal funding. While many respond readily, questions arise about whether participation is legally required and the consequences of non-compliance. This article examines the legal obligations surrounding the census.

      Mandatory Nature and Relevant Legal Obligations Participation in the decennial census is a legal duty originating from the U.S. Constitution. Article I, Section 2 mandates an “actual Enumeration” every decade, empowering Congress to establish the method.

      Congress fulfilled this through federal law, primarily Title 13 of the United States Code, which governs the census. Section 141 directs the Secretary of Commerce to conduct the count.1 Other sections detail respondent responsibilities. Crucially, Title 13 requires all persons residing in the United States on Census Day (April 1st) to respond. This includes citizens, legal residents, long-term visitors, and undocumented immigrants. The legal framework confirms the compulsory nature of census participation.

    • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      This is a big deal in its own right. The problem with all of the “this is just a distraction from Epstein” comments, is that usually the “distraction” they’re referring to is, in and of itself, very important.

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        Part of the problem is that Trump says a lot of things but only ends up doing a few of them. Everyone ends up wasting a lot of time and energy reacting to things that never end up happening, and that ends up taking away from time to respond to things he’s actually done. Like yes, if this happens it’s a huge deal, but right now this is just the latest load of bullshit to come tumbling out of that cesspool Trump calls a mouth. It’s very concerning, but nearly everything Trump says is very concerning, and the things he actually does even more so.

        • bradinutah@thelemmy.club
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          Agreed, thank you! And the difference is that Epstein pedophilia is something that a significant chunk of the MAGA base actually does care about. To lose that support is why the Donvict is desperately making distractions and seeing what spaghetti sticks to keep hold of his malignant narcissist power. Keep donOLD running scared like the TACO pedo coward he is!

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    They didn’t count Democrat votes in 2024 so Trump could get back in office, now they’re not going to count Democrats as citizens.