Congressional Democrats are sounding the alarm over the Census Bureau’s decision to include citizenship questions in practice tests for the 2030 national population count, warning it could frighten immigrant communities and compromise the accuracy of the critical survey.
House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Democrats sent a letter Thursday asking the Census Bureau to abandon its plan to use the American Community Survey form, which contains citizenship questions, during field tests scheduled to begin next month in Huntsville, Alabama, and Spartanburg, South Carolina. Instead, they want officials to use standard census forms without such questions.
“The Trump Administration is risking millions of taxpayer dollars to pursue policies which could fatally compromise the 2030 count before it even begins,” the lawmakers stated in their correspondence to acting Census Bureau Director George Cook and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, whose department supervises the statistical agency.
Neither the Census Bureau nor Commerce Department provided immediate responses to requests for comment.
These practice runs allow the statistical agency to develop better methods for counting populations that were missed in previous surveys. The national headcount plays a crucial role in determining congressional representation and Electoral College votes for each state, while also guiding the distribution of $2.8 trillion in federal funding each year. One innovation being evaluated involves having U.S. Postal Service employees handle duties traditionally performed by census workers.
Recently, the Census Bureau announced its 2026 testing strategy would incorporate the American Community Survey form, which poses numerous detailed questions to participants, while canceling planned tests in Colorado Springs, Colorado, western North Carolina, western Texas and Arizona tribal territories.
Democratic lawmakers expressed worry that including citizenship questions would discourage immigrant participation, leading to systematic undercounting of certain populations.
“Many immigrants or citizens in mixed-status families, including green card holders and other legal permanent residents, face fear, chaos, and uncertainty over who the Trump Administration will target next for denaturalization and deportation,” their letter stated.
During his previous presidency, Donald Trump made unsuccessful attempts to insert citizenship questions into the 2020 census. The Republican leader also issued directives aimed at excluding undocumented individuals from congressional apportionment calculations and requiring citizenship data collection.
The Supreme Court ultimately prevented the citizenship question addition, and President Biden eliminated both orders after taking office in January 2021, before the 2020 census results were finalized.
The Constitution’s 14th Amendment specifies that “the whole number of persons in each state” must be counted for congressional and Electoral College apportionment purposes. Census Bureau officials have consistently interpreted this language to include all U.S. residents, regardless of immigration status.
