LDF, NAACP, and American Oversight Launch Investigation into Discriminatory Census Proposal That Could Radically Reshape Future Redistricting

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, the Legal Defense Fund (LDF), NAACP, and American Oversight launched an investigation into the U.S. Census Bureau’s recent proposal to remove demographic questions — including on race and ethnicity — from the decennial census for the first time since 1790. The proposal would also exclude certain residents entirely from the population counts used to apportion seats in Congress.

Through expedited Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to the Commerce Department and Census Bureau, the organizations seek records showing how the proposal was developed, what the agencies understood about its consequences, and what role White House officials and outside political groups played in shaping it.

“The census is supposed to count everyone. It is the foundation of fair representation and of how communities get the resources they need,” said Chioma Chukwu, Executive Director of American Oversight. “President Trump tried unsuccessfully to manipulate the census count during his first term.  Now, his administration wants to stop collecting the data used to enforce civil rights laws and to strip millions of residents from the count that determines political power. The public deserves to know who is driving these changes, what officials knew about their consequences, and whether partisan operatives had a hand in them.”

The Census Bureau published two proposed changes on September 10. One would redefine who has a “usual residence” in the United States, excluding noncitizens without green cards — including refugees and visa holders — from the counts used to allocate congressional seats and Electoral College votes. Those residents would still count toward the population totals used to guide federal funding. The other would remove questions on race and ethnicity from the census questionnaire. The public comment period closes November 2.

In the proposal, the bureau argues that such noncitizens are not “true inhabitants” of the country. To justify ending the demographic questions, the bureau cites Executive Order 14281, a 2025 order directing federal agencies to abandon disparate-impact liability in enforcing civil rights laws.

The 14th Amendment requires counting “the whole number of persons in each state,” and no one living in the states has ever been excluded from the apportionment count because of immigration status. Moreover, the demographic questions have been a part of the decennial census since 1790. The resulting data is used to enforce civil rights laws, evaluate the fairness of representation in government, and avoid discrimination in the allocation of resources to communities. The census is the only source of complete, block-level data on race and ethnicity. Eliminating it would deny voters and states information needed to draw fair legislative districts and comply with civil rights laws, including the Voting Rights Act. 

The proposal follows earlier efforts to use the census against communities of color and immigrant groups. In 2018, the Trump Administration directed the Census Bureau to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census, despite bureau officials’ recommendation to use other means of collecting citizenship information. The Supreme Court blocked the question in 2019. In August 2025, President Donald Trump announced that he had ordered work on a new census that would exclude undocumented immigrants.

Questions about outside influence at the bureau have mounted ever since. In September, reports indicated that at least seven staffers from the America First Policy Institute (AFPI), a Trump-aligned think tank, had been granted access to the Census Bureau.

The requests to the Commerce Department and the Census Bureau seek directives, guidance, analyses, and policies related to the proposed changes, including assessments of how removing demographic data would affect states and federal agencies. They also seek records on how the bureau plans to identify certain noncitizens and remove them from the 2030 census or apportionment count — including any use of administrative records to determine individuals’ legal status. Additionally, the requests seek communications between senior Commerce Department and Census Bureau officials and outside groups, including AFPI, as well as with other senior administration officials.

The public has an urgent interest in understanding why the Census Bureau is proposing to abandon more than two centuries of practice, and who influenced that decision.