The Senate, predominantly guided by Democratic leadership, was not successful in passing a proposal presented by the GOP. This legislation aimed at excluding all forms of illegal immigration from being considered in the census count, a critical statistic that directly influences the apportionment of House seats for each state. The main advocate of this proposal was Senator Bill Hagerty, a Republican from Tennessee who suggested this amendment as a part of the larger budget spend of $460 billion.
Hagerty’s proposal indeed carried a few significant specifics. The amendment requested the Census Bureau to always include a question regarding citizenship within all future census documentation. Along with this, it sought to restrict non-US citizens from being included when determining allocation for congressional districts and seats in the Electoral College.
The implications of such an amendment would go beyond merely keeping non-citizens out of consideration, it further aimed to exclude even legal immigrants who hold temporary visas or green cards from the census count. Above all, it sought to put a stop to including illegal immigrants in the census count, a situation that the bill sought to address with urgency.
What served as a prompt for this proposed legislation was the massive surge in new entries into the United States following the initial changes made by President Joe Biden. He replaced nearly all previous immigration and border security policies set by his predecessor, President Donald Trump, seemingly overnight.
Interestingly, the proposed legislation displays certain parallels with a strategy considered during President Trump’s term which sought to include a citizenship question in the 2020 census. A firm stand in this line of thought came from Lora Ries of The Heritage Foundation and RJ Hauman, the head of the National Immigration Center for Enforcement.
In an essay driven towards the same cause, Ries and Hauman drew attention to an inflated representation in Congress, a situation they found especially beneficial for Democrats. They argued in favor of the need for the census to exclude non-citizens in order to ensure that America’s chosen leaders truly represent the American citizens, the only demographic entitled to vote in U.S. elections.
According to them, the current crisis has an unwarranted skewing effect on the representation of states in the House, and thus impacts their electoral standing during Presidential elections. However, despite the strong grounds made by this argument, Hagerty’s amendment proposal failed to pass.
The proposal didn’t gather the necessary support, witnessing resistance from 51 Democrats and Independents who either voted against the amendment or remained absent during the voting. To everyone’s surprise, Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski from Alaska too registered a vote against the proposal.
The remaining slate of Republicans however, either supported the legislation or were notably absent during the time of voting. The final outcome of the critical vote was an unfortunate 51 to 45, wherein the amendment proposal was decidedly rejected.
One such recipient of this curious news was Tesla and SpaceX’s CEO, Elon Musk, who expressed his perspectives regarding the outcome on his X platform. He pointed out that many Americans are still unaware that the current US Census includes all individuals residing within a district, regardless of their citizenship status, when considering voting power.
Following the Senate Democrats’ unanimous decision to thwart the amendment, Musk wrote, ‘The defeat of this amendment implies the continuation of counting undocumented immigrants for the apportionment of congressional seats and electoral college votes.’ He expressed his concern that because a majority of undocumented immigrants live in Democratic states, there could potentially be a 5% left-leaning shift in both the House and Presidential vote.
Musk then linked this shift to the Biden administration’s approach, which, according to him, has facilitated record levels of undocumented immigrants and surprisingly limited deportations. He concluded by highlighting the potential implications of such a shift, postulating that it could be sufficient to fundamentally alter the existing political equilibrium.
Meanwhile, political commentator Stacy Washington offered additional remarks on the current state of affairs. Washington stressed on her belief that the Democrats’ strategy to keep the borders open wouldn’t have been viable without the SCOTUS decision to mandate counting non-citizens in the CENSUS.
Despite these illegal immigrants not having the legal authority to cast a vote, Washington noted they still have the potential to significantly influence the overall number of seats in the House of Representatives. In her view, this provision alone could bolster Democrats’ control over the House.
Overall, the decision to reject this legislation has emphasizied further the unique tensions and complexities surrounding the handling of immigration issues, apportionment of congressional seats and the intricacies of electoral strategies and their influences on America’s political landscape.
