Democrats on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform urged the U.S. Census Bureau to change course on a 2026 practice test for the 2030 census, warning that including a citizenship question could undermine the once-a-decade head count by discouraging participation. In a letter to acting Census Bureau Director George Cook and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick—whose department oversees the statistical agency—lawmakers said the citizenship question is not worth the risk ahead of tests scheduled to start next month in Huntsville, Alabama, and Spartanburg, South Carolina.
The lawmakers asked the Census Bureau to drop plans to use the American Community Survey form, which includes the citizenship question, and instead rely on a more traditional census questionnaire that omits it. They said the field test gives the Census Bureau an opportunity to improve how it counts populations that were undercounted in the last census, but they warned that the citizenship question could derail that effort before the 2030 count begins.
In the letter, Democrats warned that the citizenship question would likely affect immigrants and legal residents in mixed-status households. They cited “fear, chaos, and uncertainty” among people they described as at risk of future enforcement, including green card holders and other legal permanent residents.
Democrats also argued that the practical stakes extend beyond the practice test itself. The head count determines how many congressional seats and Electoral College votes each state receives, and it shapes how about $2.8 trillion in federal funding is distributed each year, according to the letter and related reporting.
The Census Bureau has said it plans to use the American Community Survey form in the 2026 test and lawmakers pointed to changes in that rollout, including the elimination of several other planned locations. The planning also includes additional methods being tested for the 2030 effort, including the use of U.S. Postal Service workers to perform tasks that had previously been carried out by census workers.
Democrats linked their current concern to earlier attempts by the Trump administration to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census. In that earlier effort, President Donald Trump tried to include a citizenship question in 2020, and the plan was blocked by the U.S. Supreme Court; related executive orders were rescinded after Democrat Joe Biden took office in January 2021 before the 2020 census figures were released.
The letter further referenced the constitutional basis for how the government should count people for apportionment under the 14th Amendment, which calls for “the whole number of persons in each state.” The Census Bureau has interpreted that language to mean counting anyone living in the United States, regardless of legal status.
Separately, Commerce Department attorneys said Thursday that new criteria it plans to release for counting people for the 2030 census could affect an ongoing federal lawsuit in Louisiana brought by four Republican state attorneys general. The government asked the court to keep a hold on the case while the bureau determines “the matter at the heart of this case”—whether and how to count citizens of foreign countries in the United States for the 2030 census.
The Census Bureau and Commerce Department did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment.
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