BOSTON (AP) – Civil rights and immigrant groups in Massachusetts have filed a federal lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump’s efforts to exclude immigrants living in the country illegally from being counted in the redrawing of congressional districts.
Lawyers for Civil Rights filed the suit in Boston federal court late Monday on behalf of four organizations representing Haitian, Brazilian and Latino immigrants in the Boston area.
The organizations argue that Trump’s memo to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross last week is unconstitutional and that the federal court needs to immediately intervene to ensure an accurate count in the nation’s ongoing population count.
“The fourth sentence of the Constitution makes clear that the decennial census is intended to count and include all persons, not just all citizens,” said Lauren Sampson, a staff attorney at the Boston-based Lawyers for Civil Rights.
The U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Commerce that oversees it, which are both named in the suit, didn’t respond to an email seeking comment Tuesday. Trump has said including people in the country illegally in the population count “would create perverse incentives and undermine our system of government.”