The U.S. Census counts noncitizens. Did that give Democrats ‘24 more seats’ in Congress?

A North Carolina Republican has a theory about why Democrats oppose a bill requiring state and local government agencies to help detain people wanted by federal immigration officials. 

Republicans in the GOP-controlled General Assembly hope to enact the bill, known as the "North Carolina Border Protection Act", after Democratic Gov. Josh Stein vetoed it in June. They overrode Stein’s veto in the state Senate; the House of Representatives has yet to vote on an override.

State Rep. John Blust, a Guilford County Republican, said during the bill’s June 4 House debate that Democrats benefit from having a large population of people in the U.S. illegally.

"I keep thinking, 'Why are they [Democrats] choosing this hill to die on?’," Blust said. "And then I read a few weeks ago that: Because they count illegal aliens in the census, the Republican majority would be 27 seats in the Congress instead of three."

What is Blust talking about?

Every 10 years, Congress redistributes the 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives based on each state’s population. States gain or lose seats based on population estimates calculated by the U.S. Census. For example, the 2020 census showed North Carolina population growth, leading it to gain a fourteenth congressional seat; New York lost a seat due to population decline. 

Census-takers measure only the number of people living in the U.S; they aren’t responsible for determining a person’s legal status. President Donald Trump tried to change that prior to the 2020 census, but the Supreme Court blocked an effort to add a citizenship question to the national survey. On Aug. 7, Trump said on Truth Social that people without legal status would not be included in census data. Blust said the practice of including immigrants illegally in the U.S. benefits states with more liberal populations.

One note about Blust’s original statement about the GOP’s majority in the U.S. House: the party’s edge has fluctuated as members have died or resigned. In an email responding to PolitiFact’s question about his comments, Blust clarified his claim.

"I have read that Democrats have 24 more seats than they would have if illegal aliens were not counted in the census," he wrote in a June 13 email. 

Blust said he couldn’t remember where he read the statistic about Congressional apportionment and provided no evidence to support his claim. 

Reports that Democrats benefit 

PolitiFact fact-checked the theory about congressional apportionment last year after similar claims by billionaire Elon Musk, Republican congressmen, and Trump adviser Stephen Miller. 

Some alleged that immigrants in the country illegally accounted for 22 U.S. House seats based on population estimates by the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which advocates for reduced immigration. The federation claimed in a 2023 report that the U.S. was home to about 16.8 million such immigrants as of that June. Some people took that 16.8 million number and divided it by 761,169 — the number of people each congressional seat represents — to arrive at the math for 22 affected House seats. 

But PolitiFact found the Federation for American Immigration Reform’s data is flawed because it likely overcounted the number of immigrants in the U.S. illegally. Other groups estimate a lower population of immigrants in the country illegally, ranging from 10.5 million to about 11 million.

The Center for Immigration Studies, which also advocates for less immigration, has published new reports on the immigrant population since last year’s PolitiFact report. That group’s findings don’t support Blust’s claim, either.

The center estimated that the U.S. is home to 21.6 million noncitizens, about half of whom are here illegally. It said that noncitizens — regardless of immigration status — created a net gain of 14 U.S. House seats in Democratic-leaning states in 2020. Migrants in the U.S. illegally likely affected two U.S. House seats in 2020, the group reported. 

If the census were retaken in 2024, the Center for Immigration Studies estimated, migrants in the U.S. illegally would affect seven states by shifting four U.S. House seats: seats in Minnesota, Oregon, Ohio, and Tennessee would be redistributed to Arizona, California and Texas (which would get two new seats). 

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“Home Depot signed a deal that pays them $250 million with DHS, allowing ICE agents to stake out their parking lots and arrest immigrants.”

Reports showing mixed results, GOP benefit 

Other groups say that unauthorized immigrants have a much smaller effect on U.S. House seats.

The Pew Research Center reported in 2020 that three seats would shift if unauthorized immigrants were excluded from that year’s census. California, Texas and Florida would lose a seat, while Alabama, Ohio and Minnesota would have gained one seat each.

The Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, said in a January 2024 report that noncitizen populations — both legal immigrants and immigrants in the country illegally — primarily increased in Republican-led states between 2019 and 2023. Cato said red states gained an estimated 1.2 million noncitizens while blue states gained about 72,000. Cato researcher David Bier, the report’s author, told PolitiFact North Carolina in a telephone interview that Blust’s claim is "very wrong" and that he’s not aware of any credible study that supports Blust’s claim. 

A study published in January found that including immigrants in the U.S. illegally in census data has had "minimal" impact on party representations of the U.S. House of Representatives. The study was conducted by University of Minnesota researcher Rob Warren and Robert E. Warren, a former demographer for the U.S. Census who’s now a senior visiting fellow at the Center for Migration Studies of New York, a think tank studying international migration.

If immigrants in the U.S. illegally were excluded from the 2020 census, California and Texas would have each lost one seat in the 2020 House and those seats would have been given to Ohio and New York instead, Warren and Warren reported. 

"Even if we were to make the most extreme possible assumption — that every ‘lost’ seat would have cost Democrats and every ‘gained’ seat would have benefitted Republicans — the number of seats switching parties could never have exceeded five," they wrote in their study. 

Brian Gaines, a University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign political science professor, said excluding migrants in the country illegally from the census would likely cause "a small increase in the Republican share of U.S. House seats." However, he said, Blust’s estimate of 24 seats is "implausibly high."

Our ruling

Blust said Democrats have "24 more seats" in the U.S. House than they would have if immigrants in the U.S. illegally weren’t counted in the census.

Blust didn’t provide any evidence to support his claim. Estimates by researchers and advocacy groups show that immigrants in the U.S. illegally likely affect congressional apportionment — but not by as many seats as Blust said, and not benefitting Democrats as much as Blust said. At least one study shows Republican-led states benefitting more than states led by Democrats.

We rate his claim False.