Court Rules Undocumented Immigrants to be Counted in Census

Attorney General Josh Kaul was on the winning side against the Trump administration in its attempts to exclude undocumented immigrants from the census count.

Wisconsin joined a coalition of states and local governments in July that filed a lawsuit after Donald Trump issued a presidential memorandum declaring his intent to exclude immigrants without documentation from being counted. Yesterday judges in U.S. District Court in New York agreed with Kaul and the other attorneys general, along with the U.S. Conference of Mayors, that such exclusion was unlawful.

The court used language that indicated its unanimous decision was an easy one as it granted summary judgement: “The merits of the parties’ dispute are not particularly close or complicated.”

“A three-judge panel has unanimously concluded that President Donald Trump’s effort to rig the Census by changing who is included in the apportionment base violates the law,” said Kaul. “I will continue standing up to attempts by the Trump administration to undermine a fair Census.”

The census determines apportionment for political representation, including Congressional representation. The court ruled that by trying to change the basis for apportionment, Trump violated the legal requirement that the House of Representatives is responsible for counting all people in each state for the census.

Reprinted with permission of Wisconsin Examiner.