Q&A of the Day – Illegal Immigration’s Impact on The Census & Future Electoral College Votes
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Today’s Entry: @brianmuddradio If illegals are now here in numbers that are larger than 36 states what would the impact on future elections look like via the electoral college vote after the next census?
Bottom Line: Today’s note is in response to a recent Fox News analysis of the most recent U.S. Customs and Border Protection data showing a total of 7.3 million migrants having entered the country since Joe Biden became president. That’s a total, that as Fox noted, is larger than the population of 36 states. Also, as is noted in the Fox story, there’s an additional estimated 1.8 million “gotaways” bringing the total number of estimated border crossers up to 9.1 million during the first three years of the Biden administration. Notably, almost all of the so-called migrants are, in reality, illegal immigrants gaming the country’s asylum policies while taking advantage of President Biden’s open border policies. As my recent analysis illustrated, over 97% of those seeking asylum in this country are ultimately determined to be illegal immigrants (with most never showing to ordered court hearings once establishing themselves within the country’s interior). All of these newly established illegal immigrants are in addition to the greater than 11 million which were already estimated to have been living within the United States prior to the Biden administration.
In addressing today’s question, we have a couple of factors coming together. The first is that the Census, which also determines the number of electoral college votes a state has in presidential elections, counts “persons” living in a given location instead of only legal citizens. This is a constitutional principle President Trump challenged during the 2020 Census process unsuccessfully. This means that should these illegal immigrants remain in the United States for the next Census count in 2030 they would potentially impact electoral college representation in states in addition to impacting Congressional representation as well. Let’s break all of this down.
The current CBO population estimate for the United States is 342 million people. Therefore, 2.7% of the country’s population is comprised of what are effectively illegal immigrants who’ve come across the border under the past three years of the Biden administration. Once previously existing illegal immigrant estimates are factored in, the percentage rises to 5.9% of the country’s population. Illegal immigration into the United States is currently the fastest growing segment of the country’s population. In today’s numbers, population equal to approximately 14 to 15 electoral college votes could be influenced. That obviously would have the potential to swing a close presidential election. Additionally, we could see a similar number of congressional seats in the House of Representatives impacted as well. Where it becomes a bit more complicated in terms of the potential impact is where the illegal immigrants are settling.
While New York City remains the top destination for migrants, followed by Los Angeles at #2, that’s not entirely reflective of the bigger picture. An updated look at Syracuse University’s Immigration tracker shows there are more southern border asylum seekers being relocated into Florida than anywhere else most recently. Florida has led the country in relocated migrants each of the past three years with a total of greater than 1.2 million of the known 7.3 million migrants having been resettled within the state. Texas has been #2 during this time with California 3rd, New York 4th and New Jersey 5th. What this means is that Florida and Texas would actually stand to gain the most additional representation on the basis of the influx of illegal immigrants based on what’s transpired during the Biden administration however the picture more broadly does paint a slightly different picture.
It’s an oversimplification to use the 2020 presidential election as the barometer of what a red state or a blue state happens to be. However, both Joe Biden and Donald Trump won 25 states. Based on 2020 outcomes, states Biden won have taken in 58% of the resettled illegal immigrants compared to 42% in the states that Trump won. That would mean that to the extent Biden’s border crisis may impact the next Census, based on what we know today, it’s likely to have a net positive impact on representation and electoral college representation in blue states.
Earlier this week Nolan Rappaport, in an opinion piece for The Hill spoke to this when he said: Why is the Biden administration allowing this (the open border)?
Undocumented migrants tend to settle in Democratically controlled cities that have adopted sanctuary policies that protect them from the threat of deportation, so any additional seats are likely to benefit the Democrats.
According to the Pew Research Center, if undocumented immigrants had been excluded from the 2020 census, California, Florida and Texas would have lost a congressional seat, and Alabama, Minnesota and Ohio would have held onto a seat that they would have otherwise lost.
The point there is twofold. First, there’s the potential to impact the electoral college vote count. Secondly, even in “red” states, there’s the likelihood that illegal immigrants would be counted into still larger blue districts that could create additional “blue” seats even within red states. Is this the driving force behind the policy? At minimum you know that Biden administration officials are aware.