News Archive

An order from the Trump administration that would exclude undocumented immigrants from the 2020 census is being challenged by 22 states in the United States Supreme Court. The decision could impact federal funding and the allocation of seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. Professor Gerard Magliocca said the decision likely wouldn’t impact Indiana’s number of representatives, but federal income could be affected. He discussed the case for a news story on Indianapolis radio station WIBC.

The number of undocumented immigrants counted in the 2020 census may be too small to make a difference in federal funding, and it’s not clear now the government intends to calculate that number, Professor Magliocca said in the story. Should the court rule that the case isn’t ready for a decision as yet, and the number proves to be large enough to make a difference, the justices will end up needing to decide the issue later.

Professor Magliocca, a well-known constitutional law scholar, is the Samuel R. Rosen Professor of Law at IU McKinney. He is the author of four books, the latest of which, The Heart of the Constitution: How the Bill of Rights Became the Bill of Rights, was published by Oxford University Press in 2018. He also is the author of over 20 articles on constitutional law and intellectual property. He was named to the 2020-2021 class of fellows for the Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington at Mount Vernon.