The Public Comment period on this closes soon, so please make your voice heard by sharing this information and commenting on this post.
Text DAD to 63033 for the form.
Every ten years, the Constitution requires us to perform a Census, counting every person living in America. That count decides how many seats each state gets in Congress. It also steers federal money to schools, hospitals, roads, and childcare: more than $2.8 trillion in fiscal year 2021, by the Census Bureau’s own count.
The Constitution says to count “the whole number of persons in each State.” Every census since 1790 has counted the people living here regardless of immigration status, as the Brennan Center notes.
This administration’s rule would drop noncitizens without green cards from the count that decides House seats, including refugees and asylum seekers, States Newsroom reported. That’s at least 11 million people. And when one person in a home fears their answers could reach ICE, the whole household stops answering the door, citizens included.
It would ban questions about race and ethnicity, ending more than 230 years of that data, per the National Low Income Housing Coalition. That’s the data we use to prove voting rights violations, track who gets sick, and see whose kids are falling behind. If we lose that data, we lose our ability to track and prove the harm being done.
And it would count you where you spent the most days between January 3 and April 1, matched to your tax records, per NACo’s rule breakdown. So if you winter down here in Florida, you might get counted here. But if you rent an apartment and earn too little to file taxes, you might not count anywhere.
The president asked for a new census built on information from the 2024 election. Missouri’s attorney general sued to exclude immigrants from the count, then dropped the case eight days after the proposed rule was released.
None of it is final. Public comments close November 2 at 11:59 p.m. ET. Here’s how you make one:
Text DAD to 63033 — you’ll get a link to a form with a pre-filled letter opposing this proposed census rule. You can add your own thoughts and then send it directly to the Census Bureau and make it part of the public record during this comment period.
Be kind, feed your mind, and stand up and be counted.
Sources / Further reading:
Axios. “Trump’s Census Plan Could Reshape Voting Maps, Eliminate Race Questions.” September 10, 2026. https://axios.com/2026/09/10/trump-census-voting-maps-race-questions
Brennan Center for Justice. “Excluding Immigrants from the Census Would Hurt the Country and Break the Law.” September 2026. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/excluding-immigrants-census-would-hurt-country-and-break-law
Democracy Docket. “Missouri Drops GOP-Led Bid to Rig Elections by Excluding Undocumented from Census Count.” September 2026. https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/missouri-drops-gop-led-bid-to-rig-elections-by-excluding-undocumented-from-census-count/
National Association of Counties. “2030 Decennial Census Proposed Rule: County Advocacy Hub.” 2026. https://www.naco.org/resource/2030-decennial-census-proposed-rule-county-advocacy-hub
National Low Income Housing Coalition. “Join NLIHC Organizational Sign-On to Oppose Harmful Census Changes.” October 2026. https://nlihc.org/resource/join-nlihc-organizational-sign-oppose-harmful-census-changes
National Low Income Housing Coalition. “Proposed Census Rule Would Jeopardize Accurate Congressional Apportionment, Impact Federal Funding; Comments Due November 2.” October 5, 2026. https://nlihc.org/resource/proposed-census-rule-would-jeopardize-accurate-congressional-apportionment-impact-federal
Population Reference Bureau. “Children Are Already Undercounted in the Census. Proposed Changes Could Make It Worse.” 2026. https://www.prb.org/news/children-are-already-undercounted-in-the-census-proposed-changes-could-make-it-worse/
Roll Call. “Census Overhaul Proposed by Trump Administration Could Reshape Congress.” September 9, 2026. https://rollcall.com/2026/09/09/census-overhaul-proposed-trump-administration-reshape-congress/
States Newsroom (Missouri Independent). “Trump Administration Aims to Exclude Many Noncitizens from the Census.” September 10, 2026. https://missouriindependent.com/2026/09/10/repub/trump-administration-aims-to-exclude-many-noncitizens-from-the-census/
U.S. Census Bureau. “Census Bureau Data Guide More Than $2.8 Trillion in Federal Funding in Fiscal Year 2021.” June 14, 2023. https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2023/decennial-census-federal-funds-distribution.html
U.S. Census Bureau. “Uses of Decennial Census Programs Data in Federal Funds Distribution: Fiscal Year 2021.” Working paper, 2023. https://www.census.gov/library/working-papers/2023/dec/census-data-federal-funds.html
WGBH / NPR. “Trump Wants a New U.S. Census to Exclude People Here Illegally. It’d Be Unprecedented.” August 7, 2025. https://www.wgbh.org/news/2025-08-07/trump-wants-a-new-u-s-census-to-exclude-people-here-illegally-itd-be-unprecedented
