{"id":20846,"date":"2026-03-03T10:48:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T10:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=20846"},"modified":"2026-03-03T10:48:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T10:48:09","slug":"should-illegal-immigrants-be-included-in-the-census-courts-could-soon-decide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=20846","title":{"rendered":"Should Illegal Immigrants Be Included in the Census? Courts Could Soon Decide"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n Reading Time:<\/span> 2<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Did our Founding Fathers intend for illegal immigrants to be counted in the Census? A recent lawsuit filed by the State of Missouri aims to force the courts to answer this key question definitively.\n<\/p>\n

Do you want state prayer alerts?<\/h4>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

From Just the News:\n<\/p>\n

Article I, Section 2, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution\u00a0requires an \u201cactual enumeration\u201d of the population for purposes of congressional representation. The Fourteenth Amendment later clarified that this enumeration must count the \u201cwhole number of persons\u201d residing in each state.\n<\/p>\n

The Constitution, however, has never been interpreted to require counting every individual physically present within a state on census day. For example, no cases have contended that the Census Bureau must count temporary visitors, such as foreign tourists or short-term travelers.\n<\/p>\n

While there is broad agreement that the phrase \u201cwhole number of persons\u201d does not require a literal counting of every individual physically present in a state at a given moment, there is disagreement over whether it requires the Census Bureau to include illegal immigrants.<\/p>\n

According to Just the News, President Carter made the decision to count illegal immigrants ahead of the 1980 census. Following this census, which included \u201cover 2 million undocumented aliens,\u201d both New York and California gained representatives in Congress, which Georgia and Indiana each lost a representative.\n<\/p>\n

The Federalist Papers, documents often examined to discern the intentions of the framers of the Constitution, describe the census as a count of a state\u2019s \u201cinhabitants.\u201d This reinforces the idea that only settled citizens should be counted in a census, not travelers or illegal immigrants. And, according to Just the News, our nation\u2019s first census reflected that understanding, clarifying that a person could only be counted in a state\u2019s census if he was a \u201cusual resident\u201d or an \u201cinhabitant\u201d of that state.\n<\/p>\n

Last week, Missouri and other plaintiffs filed a lawsuit against the Census Bureau, arguing that its inclusion of illegal immigrants \u201cviolates the Constitution and is unlawful under the Administrative Procedure Act,\u201d according to Just the News. Plaintiffs argue that the executive branch cannot redefine the population counted in the census, and the Founders never intended for illegal immigrants to be counted in the first place. Missouri has asked for expedited resolution and, if the cases reaches the Supreme Court, the most powerful justices in the land may determine once and for all who can be counted in the census.\n<\/p>\n

Should the courts rule that illegal immigrants cannot be counted, we would likely see the balance of power in our nation, especially in the House of Representatives, shift. Let\u2019s pray for wisdom for the judges who will rule in this case!\n<\/p>\n

How are you praying about this case? Share your prayers and scriptures below.<\/h4>\n

(Excerpt from Just the News. Photo Credit: Kurgenc\/Getty Images)
\n \n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reading Time: 2 minutes Did our Founding Fathers intend for illegal immigrants to be counted in the Census? A recent lawsuit filed by the State of Missouri aims to force the courts to answer this key question definitively. Do you want state prayer alerts? \u00a0 From Just the News: Article I, Section 2, Clause 3<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20847,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[3306,2358,1971,3705,4989,6854],"class_list":["post-20846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-prayer","tag-census","tag-courts","tag-decide","tag-illegal","tag-immigrants","tag-included"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20846\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}