February 20, 2026
SPLC fights to keep noncitizens in census count for Congress
Four red states want to strip immigrant communities from the 2030 count
📜Constitutional Law✊Civil Rights🏛️Government
The SPLC filed its motion to intervene on behalf of three League of Women Voters chapters: the national organization, plus the Florida and New York state chapters. SPLC senior supervising attorney Avner Shapiro called the case a fight over who has a voice in America, arguing that the Constitution is clear that representation must be based on the whole number of persons regardless of immigration status.
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill and Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach led the lawsuit, filed on January 17, 2025, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana. Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost and West Virginia Attorney General J.B. McCuskey also joined. The states argue that the Census Bureau's Residence Rule, which requires counting all residents regardless of legal status, unfairly gives states with more immigrants extra congressional seats.
The 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868 after the Civil War, replaced the Constitution's original three-fifths clause. Section 2 says representatives shall be apportioned by counting the whole number of persons in each state. Before the 14th Amendment, enslaved people were counted as three-fifths of a person for apportionment. The amendment made clear that everyone living in a state counts toward representation.
Census data determines how $1.5 trillion in federal funding gets distributed every year across more than 300 programs. Medicaid and Medicare alone account for about two-thirds of that total. Other programs include SNAP food assistance, Title I education grants, Head Start, and the National School Lunch Program. When communities get undercounted, they lose funding for schools, hospitals, and food assistance for an entire decade until the next census.
The 2020 census undercounted Black Americans at a rate of 3.3%, Latinos at 4.99%, and Native Americans on reservations at 5.64%. About 18.8 million people were not counted correctly. The Black undercount alone cost Black communities an estimated $8 billion in federal funding. Census errors also distorted congressional representation: Florida missed out on two additional House seats it should have received, while Texas lost one.
The Trump administration has sent mixed signals on the census. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told Congress that the Constitution requires counting whole persons, but the administration is also testing a citizenship question in Alabama and South Carolina for the 2030 census. President Trump called for a new census that would exclude undocumented residents. In September 2025, the administration installed George Cook, a Commerce Department official with a finance background, as acting Census Bureau director after career director Robert Santos resigned in February 2025.
The case was stayed in March 2025 at the Commerce Department's request so the new Trump administration could review its position. The state attorneys general asked to lift the stay in December 2025. If the court sides with the plaintiff states, Pew Research estimates that 56% of the nation's 11.7 million undocumented immigrants live in just six states: California, Texas, Florida, New York, New Jersey, and Illinois. Excluding them would shift House seats and Electoral College votes away from those states.
Multiple groups have already moved to intervene in the case to defend counting all residents. California and Texas voters filed to intervene in January 2025, and the County of Santa Clara, California joined in February 2025. The SPLC and League of Women Voters intervention adds another layer of legal defense for the constitutional principle that the census counts everyone, not just citizens.
📜Constitutional Law✊Civil Rights🏛️Government
People, bills, and sources
Avner Shapiro
Senior supervising attorney, Southern Poverty Law Center
Liz Murrill
Attorney General of Louisiana
Kris Kobach
Attorney General of Kansas
Howard Lutnick
U.S. Commerce Secretary
George Cook
Acting Director, U.S. Census Bureau
Robert Santos
Former Director, U.S. Census Bureau (resigned February 2025)
What you can do
1
civic action
Contact your members of Congress about census funding and independence
Congress controls the Census Bureau's budget and can pass laws protecting census methodology. Your senators and representative can push for full census funding and oppose efforts to exclude noncitizens from the count.
I am calling about the 2030 census. I want to make sure the Census Bureau has full funding to count every person living in my state, as the 14th Amendment requires. I am concerned about efforts to exclude noncitizens from the count, which could cost our state congressional representation and billions in federal funding for schools and hospitals.
2
civic engagement
Participate in census outreach and complete-count committees
Local governments and community organizations form Complete Count Committees to make sure everyone gets counted. You can volunteer to help hard-to-count communities participate in the 2030 census, especially communities that were undercounted in 2020.
I want to volunteer for census outreach efforts in my community. How can I join a Complete Count Committee or help ensure an accurate count in 2030? I am especially interested in reaching communities that were undercounted in 2020.
3
information
Track the Louisiana v. Commerce case through court watchers
Organizations like Democracy Docket, the Brennan Center, and the Redistricting Data Hub track census litigation in real time. Following this case helps you understand how census policy decisions affect your community's representation and funding.