Trump's plan to exclude some immigrants from the census could cost Texas and Florida House seats
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The Trump administration's plan to leave some immigrants out of the 2030 census count used to divide up House seats could cost Texas and Florida seats and hand them to Minnesota and Oregon, according to a New York Times analysis published Saturday and reported by Newsmax.
The Times reapportioned the House using recent population estimates with noncitizens who lack green cards removed. Using 2024 estimates from FWD.us, an immigration advocacy group, Texas and Florida each ended up with one fewer seat than under a full count, and Minnesota and Oregon each gained one more. Using the Pew Research Center's 2023 estimates, Texas again lost a seat and Minnesota gained one, while Ohio picked up a seat at Rhode Island's expense.
"This isn't exactly what I think the powers that be expected," Jeffrey Passel, the Pew senior demographer who produced its estimates, told the Times.
The reason is where immigrants now live. Over the past few decades undocumented immigrants have increasingly settled in the Southeast and the Midwest, and Texas and Florida now hold some of the largest noncitizen populations that the proposal would exclude. Under the FWD.us figures, roughly 9 percent of residents in Texas, Florida, and New Jersey would drop out of the apportionment count, and as much as 5 percent of the national population.
How close the margins are
House seats are handed out one at a time by a formula called the method of equal proportions, and the last few go to whichever states are narrowly ahead. After the 2020 census, New York lost a seat that just 89 more residents would have saved.
Running the same formula on the Census Bureau's 2025 population estimates, counting everyone, shows which states are on the edge right now. Texas and Florida would each gain two seats over their current totals, and Arizona, Idaho, and Utah one each. California would lose two, and Illinois, Minnesota, New York, Oregon, and Rhode Island one each.
| State | Current seats | Full count, 2025 estimates | Noncitizen share of residents |
|---|---|---|---|
| Texas | 38 | 40 | 10.2% |
| Florida | 28 | 30 | 9.3% |
| Minnesota | 8 | 7 | 3.6% |
| Oregon | 6 | 5 | 5.0% |
| Ohio | 15 | 15 | 2.5% |
| Rhode Island | 2 | 1 | 7.0% |
| New Jersey | 12 | 12 | 10.5% |
In that full-count projection, the 435th and final seat goes to Utah. The next states in line are Rhode Island, New York, Texas, and Oregon, in that order. Rhode Island falls short of keeping its second seat by roughly 4,600 people.
Minnesota and Oregon sit just below the cutoff, with relatively few noncitizens. Texas and Florida hold seats near the cutoff and have some of the largest noncitizen populations in the country. Subtract roughly 9 percent of Texas residents, as the FWD.us figures would, and far fewer from Minnesota, where only 3.6 percent of residents are noncitizens of any kind, and the bubble states trade places.
The noncitizen shares in the table count everyone who is not a citizen, including green card holders, whom the proposal would keep counting. The group actually removed would be smaller in every state, and the Census Bureau does not publish a count of it.
A long way to 2030
Population will keep moving before the 2030 count, and the new count will set House representation beginning with the 2032 elections. Seats and Electoral College votes both follow the count, and census totals also steer federal funding. The plan is expected to face a constitutional challenge. The Fourteenth Amendment says seats go to states by "counting the whole number of persons in each state."
The proposal lands in the middle of a separate fight over district maps. After President Donald Trump urged Republican-led states in 2025 to redraw mid-decade, Texas, Missouri, and North Carolina adopted new maps favoring Republicans, and California voters temporarily replaced their independently drawn map with one favoring Democrats. Nearly 35 million Americans now live in a different congressional district than they did in 2024, according to a Protect Democracy analysis reported by PBS. The Supreme Court ruled in 2019, in Rucho v. Common Cause, that federal courts cannot police partisan gerrymandering, leaving the limits to state courts and state law.
The proposal is laid out in the Trump administration's 2030 census proposal and the earlier draft rule on undocumented immigrants. The politics of the count are in how the census shapes politics, and state growth in which states will grow the most by 2050.
Sources
The seat estimates under the exclusion scenarios, the FWD.us and Pew figures, the Passel quote, and the redistricting details come from a New York Times analysis as reported by Newsmax. The full-count projection is CensusEasy's own calculation using the method of equal proportions on the Census Bureau's Vintage 2025 state population estimates (summed from county estimates), for the 50 states; it leaves out overseas federal employees, who are added to official apportionment counts, and it is a snapshot of 2025, not a forecast for 2030. Noncitizen shares are from the 2020-2024 American Community Survey 5-year estimates, table B05002.
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How could the census proposal hurt Republican states?
Texas and Florida have some of the largest populations of noncitizens without green cards, so removing them shrinks those states' counts the most. A New York Times analysis found each could get one fewer House seat, while Minnesota and Oregon, with fewer noncitizens, could each keep one.
How many people would the proposal exclude?
As much as 5 percent of the U.S. population under the estimates the Times examined, including roughly 9 percent of residents in Texas, Florida, and New Jersey using FWD.us figures. The Census Bureau does not publish a count of noncitizens without green cards.
How close are the margins for House seats?
Very close. New York lost a seat after the 2020 census that 89 more residents would have kept. Using 2025 population estimates, Rhode Island falls about 4,600 people short of keeping its second seat, with New York, Texas, and Oregon next in line.
