CONTENTS Table 1. Estimates of Illegal Aliens Included in the 1980 Census And of Legal Aliens, by State Table 2. Percentage Distribution of the Alien Population, by State, and Aliens Relative to Total State State-Level Estimates Compared with P.L. 99-603 Legalization Table 3. Comparison of Passel and Woodrow's Illegal Alien THE TECHNICAL IMPLICATIONS OF EXCLUDING ILLEGALS FROM THE 1990 APPORTIONMENT The Burns-FAIR Proposal: Not to Count Illegal Aliens Identification of Legal and Illegal Aliens on the Census Form Passel and Woodrow's Method: To Count Illegals Without Identifying ILLUSTRATIVE APPORTIONMENTS, ADJUSTING FOR ILLEGAL ALIENS. Table 4. 1980 Apportionment Based on Various Assumptions About Table 5. 1980 Census Seat Assignment Rankings Before and After Table 6. Projected 1990 Census Seat Assignment Rankings Before 1990 Apportionment Scenarios Table 7. 1990 Apportionment Scenarios Assuming Various Appendix A. Comparative Priority Lists Based on Three Population ... Appendix B. Populations Used to Compute Priority Lists in PROPOSED EXCLUSION OF ILLEGAL ALIENS FROM THE POPULATION USED TO APPORTION THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES: A METHODOLOGICAL AND POLICY ANALYSIS INTRODUCTION From time to time, the issue of including aliens in the population count used to apportion the House of Representatives has come before the Congress. In 1929, a legislative effort was made to require the Census Bureau to count 1 the alien population, both legal and illegal. Proposals to exclude aliens from the apportionment population were advanced during the 1930s, and nine similar bills were introduced from the 95th through 99th Congresses 3 2 (1974-1987). Four bills introduced thus far in the 100th Congress--H.R. 3639 (Rep. Petri), H.R. 3814 (Rep. Ridge), H.R. 4234 (Rep. Daub) and S. 2013 (Sen. Shelby)--would exclude illegal aliens from the population count used to apportion the House. In each instance when this issue has been raised, it 4 1 Black, Hugo L. Remarks in the Senate. May 28, 1929, p. 2078. 2 Schmeckebier, Laurence F. The Brookings Institution, 1941. Congressional Record, v. 71, Congressional Apportionment. p. 86. Washington, 3 U.S. Congress. House. Committee on Post Office and Civil Service. Subcommittee on Census and Population. Improving Census Accuracy. Committee Print, 100th Congress, 1st Sess. Washington, U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1987. P. 150. 4 For a summary of prior congressional activity and a legal analysis specifically directed at the issue of illegal aliens and apportionment, see: U.S. Library of Congress. Congressional Research Service. The 1990 Decennial Census and the Counting of Illegal Aliens. Report No. 88-62 A, by Thomas M. Durbin. Washington, 1988. Also see: Aliens and Congressional Districting. (continued...) CRS-2 has been resolved in favor of continuing to include all persons considered to be U.S. residents (a category that excludes foreign diplomatic personnel living in embassies and foreign tourists) in the population used for apportionment. Renewed interest in this matter stems from congressional attention to the plans for the 1990 census and a suit filed on February 18, 1988, by the States of Pennsylvania and Kansas, Members of Congress, private citizens, and the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). 5 The constitutional issue central to this controversy can be stated as follows: Absent a constitutional amendment, are illegal aliens excludable from the counts used for apportioning seats in the House of Representatives? The issue revolves around defining the word "persons," as it is used in Article I, Section II, Clause II of the Constitution, and in Section II of the 14th Amendment (which says, in part, "Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed"). This constitutional issue is discussed in detail in other CRS reports. The weight of 190 years of census practice and congressional acceptance of such practice suggests that illegal aliens are "persons" who are eligible to be counted for purposes of apportioning the House. It is possible, however, to argue that 4 (...continued) Report No. 80-189 A, by Thomas B. Ripy and Michael V. Seitzinger. Washington, 1980. Thomas J. Ridge et. al. v. William C. Verity et. al. D.C. W.D. Pa., Civ. Act. No. 88-0351 filed Feb. 18, 1988. 6 See: Durbin, The 1990 Decennial Census and the Counting of Illegal Aliens; and Ripy and Seitzinger, Aliens and Congressional Districting. 7 Ibid. (See especially: Durbin, The 1990 Decennial Census and the Counting of Illegal Aliens, p. 1-10.) CRS-3 illegal aliens should be excluded because the "illegal" nature of their status did not exist at the time the Constitution was written. 8 Whether the Constitution would permit a law excluding any part of the alien population, legal or illegal, from apportionment is beyond the scope of this report. The purposes of this analysis are: first, to set the issue in a historical perspective; second, to explain how estimates of illegal aliens, by State, were derived after the 1980 census; third, to evaluate these estimates, and this and other possible methods for excluding illegals from the 1990 apportionment population; fourth, to evaluate what the apportionment impact would have been in 1980 had such an exclusion taken place; and, fifth, to provide several illustrative apportionment scenarios for 1990. At the outset, it can be stated that if a set of illegal alien estimates 9 prepared by two Census Bureau employees had been used to adjust the apportionment population in 1980 to exclude illegals, California and New York would have each lost one seat in the House, and Indiana and Georgia would have each gained a seat, in comparison to their actual 1980 assignments. Speculation about what the impact of such an adjustment might be in 1990 is fraught with problems because of the number of assumptions required. Although 8 For arguments in support of excluding aliens from the census for apportionment, see: Ripy and Seitzinger, Aliens and Congressional Districting, p. 21-26. See also: U.S. Congress. Senate. Committee on Governmental Affairs. Subcommittee on Energy, Nuclear Proliferation, and Government Processes. Enumeration of Undocumented Aliens in the Decennial Census. Hearing, 99th Cong., 1st Sess., Sept. 18, 1985, p. 33-52. Testimony of John Noonan. 9 Passel, Jeffrey S. and Karen A. Woodrow. Geographic Distribution of Undocumented Immigrants: Estimates of Undocumented Aliens Counted in the 1980 Census by State. International Migration Review, v. 18, no. 3, Fall 1984. (This article was originally a paper presented at the 1984 annual meeting of the Population Association of America. The paper was not an official Census Bureau document.) |