Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway filed an attention-catching lawsuit at the end of last week: She wants to keep some immigrants from being counted by the U.S. Census Bureau.
If this topic sounds familiar, it's because it was litigated near the end of President Donald Trump's first term. Lower-court judges ended up rejecting Trump's efforts to bar some immigrants from the census, pointing to language in the U.S. Constitution.
But during an appearance on the Politically Speaking Hour on St. Louis on the Air this week, Hanaway said it's important for the U.S. Supreme Court to resolve the issue – since it could have a big impact on how much congressional representation and federal money goes to Missouri.
"As the state's attorney general, I see it as my duty to protect the people of Missouri in any way I can," Hanaway said. "Because people who are not qualified to be counted in the census are currently counted in the census. And Missouri gets less than its fair share of representation in Congress, in the Electoral College and in the drawdown of federal funds."
Hanaway's lawsuit seeks to exclude immigrants without legal status and temporary visa holders from the census. She still wants the federal government to count people with lawful permanent resident documentation, which is widely known as a green card.
"Anyone who doesn't have the right to be in the United States on a permanent basis would not be counted," she said.
During Trump's first term, lower courts rejected an effort from him to exclude immigrants without legal status from the census. Among other reasons, they highlighted language in the U.S. Constitution that requires the federal government to count "people" in a census.
"Sort of looking back at how this has been done for decades, they have not excluded undocumented immigrants from the past several censuses," said Washington University law professor Travis Crum. "And I don't think that a court decision is going to do so here."
Hanaway, though, said that it's only been fairly recently that the census sought to get a rigorous estimate of people who are in the country without legal status. She added that case law indicates that the census is "only supposed to count people who are domiciled" in the United States.
With the three-judge federal district court panel requested in Hanaway's lawsuit, there would be an automatic right of appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
"And so what we're saying is: Let's get a decision on this once and for all," Hanaway said. "The Supreme Court has yet to render an opinion on this issue."
"St. Louis on the Air" brings you the stories of St. Louis and the people who live, work and create in our region. The show is produced by Miya Norfleet, Emily Woodbury, Danny Wicentowski, Elaine Cha and Alex Heuer. Layla Halilbasicis our production assistant. The audio engineer is Aaron Doerr.
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