Trump Wants to Decide Who Counts. And Who Doesn’t. Last month, the Trump administration proposed new rules that would limit who is counted in the census. It’s an initiative that is ideologically consistent with President Trump’s voter-suppression efforts, his aggressive deportation policies and his executive order that seeks to purge national parks and museums of information about slavery and Native American history that, in his words, casts our country “in a negative light.”The Constitution requires the census to count everyone in America, but Mr. Trump clearly wants to decide who counts.

Under current practice, the Census Bureau, which is part of the Department of Commerce, looks to count everyone living here, regardless of citizenship or immigration status. Census data is used for purposes ranging from congressional apportionment to government-funding formulas.

Under the administration’s proposal, the census would count only citizens and green card holders. Undocumented immigrants, international students, asylum seekers, refugees without permanent residency and others would be excluded. The administration argues that individuals in these groups lack the “sufficient tie and allegiance” required to establish them as “true inhabitants” of the United States — a rationale akin to one advanced by some critics of birthright citizenship.

In the name of making the census “colorblind,” the plan would remove questions about race and ethnicity from the census’ short-form questionnaire. It also would bar questions about sexual orientation.

Without physically removing a single person, these rules would bureaucratically disappear millions of people from the national count. They would also strip away an important reference point against which claims of unequal treatment can be measured.