Roughly 275,000 undocumented people live in Arizona, and President Trump has signed an order that aims to bar them from being counted toward the reallotment of congressional seats that will be based on the 2020 census.
Trump’s order was met with promises of lawsuits to block it. Should challenges fail, the coronavirus and the November election could still keep the president from seeing the order through.
The pandemic has delayed the census schedule beyond the presidential inauguration in January. So Trump could be out of office months before officials finish the population count that sets the number of Arizona seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.
A Phoenix official says the city is seeking more information about the order from the Census.
The executive director of Arizona’s committee that encourages Census participation directed questions to the Governor’s Office, which did not comment.
Arizona’s self-response rate to the census currently trails the national percentage, and it’s below the state’s 2010 amount.
