What is the purpose of counting everyone including illegal aliens on a census in the USA
Executive summary
The U.S. decennial census is constitutionally designed to allocate House seats and Electoral College votes by counting “the whole number of persons in each state,” which the Census Bureau interprets as all residents regardless of citizenship or legal status [1]. Counting everyone—including undocumented immigrants—affects apportionment and federal data used for policy and funding; analyses show excluding unauthorized immigrants would shift a handful of House seats among states [2] [1] [3].
1. Why the Census Counts Everyone: the Constitutional and bureaucratic rationale
The 14th Amendment directs apportionment “according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state,” and the Census Bureau’s longstanding practice is to enumerate residents where they usually live regardless of citizenship or legal right to be in the country [1] [2]. Federal law and the Bureau’s operational guidance instruct counting every person present on Census Day because apportionment and many statistical programs rely on a measure of resident population, not a tally of voters or citizens [1] [4].
2. Direct effect on power: apportionment, Electoral College and contested politics
Apportionment uses state population totals from the census to distribute 435 House seats and, by extension, Electoral College votes. Scholarly analysis and media discussions note that including noncitizens in apportionment can shift seats among states; removing unauthorized immigrants from the count would change outcomes for a small number of states, according to Pew and academic work [2] [3]. That potential consequence explains why lawmakers have repeatedly proposed bills to count only citizens and why the issue is politically charged [5] [6].
3. Practical implications beyond seats: federal funding and local planning
The census produces data used for redistricting, federal program formulas and local planning. Counting all residents yields population figures used by agencies and researchers to allocate funds and design services; excluding groups would alter those distributions and complicate longstanding statistical systems (available sources do not mention specific funding formulas changed by exclusion). The Census Bureau also supplies detailed geographic counts used for state and local decisions, not only national apportionment totals [4].
4. The politics and proposals to change the rule
Several recent bills and press campaigns aim to add a citizenship question or otherwise restrict noncitizen inclusion in apportionment, arguing that only citizens should determine representation [5] [6]. Proponents frame this as restoring “equal” citizen representation; opponents and scholars point to constitutional text and decades of practice that count all residents [1] [2]. The competing motives are clear: sponsors link the change to immigration-control politics and state-level partisan advantage, while defenders stress legal continuity and administrative feasibility [5] [6] [1].
5. How big a difference would exclusion make? The numerical perspective
Analyses conclude that excluding unauthorized immigrants would change apportionment by only a few House seats: one prominent study estimated that three states could each lose a seat while three others could each gain one under exclusion scenarios [3]. Academic and policy pieces emphasize the effect is real but geographically limited, which is why the debate is intensely focused on specific swing or high-immigrant states [3] [2].
6. Measurement and estimates: how many unauthorized immigrants and counting challenges
Estimates of the unauthorized population vary across organizations and over time; advocacy groups and research centers offer different totals—FAIR estimated 18.6 million in early 2025 while other outlets cite figures in the 11–14 million range for recent years—highlighting methodological and definitional differences [7] [8] [9]. The Census Bureau and demographers use surveys and administrative records to estimate foreign‑born and unauthorized populations, and rapid immigration changes make accurate counting harder, which in turn fuels political disputes [7] [10] [9].
7. Limitations, disputes and the hidden agenda in the debate
Sources show an ideological split: some lawmakers and interest groups seek exclusion to reduce perceived advantage to certain states and parties, while researchers and the Census Bureau defend residence-based counting on constitutional and operational grounds [5] [6] [1]. Advocacy estimates and political claims often use different methodologies or conflate encounters with net population, which can overstate long‑term population increases; neutral sources caution that raw border encounter counts are not equivalent to permanent additions [7] [11].
8. Bottom line for readers
Counting everyone in the census is grounded in constitutional text and Census Bureau practice and directly affects how political power and resources are distributed across states; changing the rule would shift a small number of House seats and alter federal and local data systems [1] [3]. The debate blends legal interpretation, statistical practicality and partisan interests—readers should treat headline population claims cautiously and compare methodologies before drawing policy conclusions [7] [11].