Proposed Census Rule Would Jeopardize Accurate Congressional Apportionment, Impact Federal Funding; Comments Due November 2
Oct 05, 2026
By Tia Turner, NLIHC Project Manager, Our Homes, Our Votes, Sarah Abdelhadi, NLIHC Manager, State and Local Research, and Renee Williams, NLIHC Senior Advisor of Public Policy
On September 10, 2026, the U.S. Census Bureau published a proposed rule in the Federal Register. The proposed rule outlines a series of deeply troubling changes to the decennial census, which will take place in 2030. If finalized and implemented, these changes will lead to an inaccurate census, with downstream negative impacts ranging from congressional representation to federal funds. A subsequent notice extended the comment deadline.
NLIHC strongly opposes the proposed rule. Members of the public can submit comments through November 2, 2026, at 11:59 pm ET. Resources for commenting and taking action are listed below.
Brief Background
The U.S. Constitution instructs the federal government to carry out a national count of all persons residing in the United States every ten years (“enumeration”). This count includes both U.S. citizens and noncitizens, including persons who are undocumented or who have legal status but are not legal permanent residents. This decennial census is used to decide the number of seats given to each state in the U.S. House of Representatives—a process called “apportionment.” The Census population count also has important implications for the distribution of federal funding, including for programs such as the Community Development Block Grant program.
The proposed rule would:
Restrict the people eligible to be counted in the decennial census to U.S. citizens and permanent residents, excluding people with short-term visas, a temporary legal status, or who are undocumented.
Prohibit questions on race, ethnicity, or sexual orientation from being asked in the decennial census.
Change the rules around where people are counted. Instead of counting people in the place where they live for most of the year (their “usual residence”), the new rule would consider where people spent the most days during a new “census enumeration period” running from January 3 to April 1. The proposed rule also says that a person’s usual residence should match that person’s tax information, and that the Census Bureau will be relying on its vast access to administrative records.
Leave the door open to adding a question on “legal status.” Note that the first Trump administration unsuccessfully attempted to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census.
If implemented, these changes would deliberately exclude many members of our communities from the decennial census and may have a chilling effect on the participation of countless others, resulting in a severe undercount. Without a complete and accurate count of the U.S. population, the apportionment process will leave communities in the U.S. without fair representation in Congress. Further, as noted above, inaccurate Census data would impact the flow of federal dollars to communities across the country.
If questions on race and ethnicity were eliminated, it would mark the first time in over 230 years that these data are not collected in a decennial census. It could also leave U.S. territories American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands without critical information about the makeup of their populations, as these areas are already underserved by federal data collection efforts and rely more heavily on the decennial census than the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.
Take Action and Resources
The Leadership Conference has launched a new Residence Rule resource page for census-related action and a new guide on the proposed changes for the census data.
Register for handsoffourcens.us Weekly Briefing: Comment Analysis on the Proposed Census Rule
This handsoffourcens.us briefing series is hosted in collaboration with:
One-pager from the Census Bureau on why the census asks about race and ethnicity
Leadership Conference Factsheet on how a citizenship question would impact census data
Leadership Conference Factsheet on how census undercounts impact communities
Resources from Massive Data Institute on technical issues with the rule (use of tax records, counting military personnel, and more)
Talking points on the proposed residence criteria from The Leadership Conference Education Fund
Messaging resources at Hands Off Our Census
Talking points on census data and Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities