Alabama Census Lawsuit Targeting Immigrants Survives Motion To Dismiss

UNITED STATES - SEPTEMBER 7: Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., speaks with reporters as he leaves the House Republican Conference meeting in the Capitol on Wednesday morning, Sept. 7, 2016. (Photo By Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call) (... UNITED STATES - SEPTEMBER 7: Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., speaks with reporters as he leaves the House Republican Conference meeting in the Capitol on Wednesday morning, Sept. 7, 2016. (Photo By Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call) (CQ Roll Call via AP Images) MORE LESS
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A federal judge in Alabama is allowing to move forward a lawsuit that seeks to exclude undocumented immigrants from the census count used to apportion political power in the United States.

U.S. District Judge David Proctor denied a motion to dismiss the lawsuit Wednesday, NPR reported.

The lawsuit was brought by the state of Alabama and U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL). They allege that including undocumented immigrants in the census count will cause Alabama to lose an electoral college vote and a U.S. House member to a state with a “larger illegal alien population.”

The U.S. Constitution, in its enumeration clause, dictates that the “whole Number” of people is used to determine how to apportion U.S. representatives across the country.

On Wednesday, Proctor said he was expressing “no view on the merits” of Alabama’s claims in the case, but that he had found that the challengers had established standing, allowing the case to advance to its next procedural stages.

The lawsuit is separate from the several challenges brought against the Trump administration for adding a citizenship question to the census — an issue that is now before the Supreme Court. In the Alabama case, civil rights groups have intervened to defend the Census’ current system of including undocumented immigrants in its count for congressional apportionment.

Read the judge’s opinion denying the motion to dismiss below:

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Notable Replies

  1. This entire debacle is about creating a class of “de-humanized” people. The echoes of Nazi Germany’s treatment of the Jews in the 1930s is chilling (Godwin be damned! I just call it like I see it).

    The modern GOP has set the stage for creating a scapegoat class for their deplorable base to rally against, preventing any sort of introspection on the part of the affected that will force them to realize that they have been conned by a two-bit group of hoodlums and grifters literally taking the food from the mouths of their children.

  2. The lawsuit is separate from the several challenges brought against the Trump administration for adding a citizenship question to the census — an issue that is now before the Supreme Court.

    Anyone know why this case wasn’t enjoined, (not sure that’s the proper legal term however) in the Supreme Court case? The article doesn’t say why its not a part of SCOTUS’s consideration.

  3. Formalizing the informal parts.

  4. Mo Brooks should resign his Congressional seat and return to his acting role in The Three Stooges.

  5. I won’t live long enough to see it, but sometime around 2060, when people of color comprise about 65% of the U.S. populace, I’d love to watch President Gonzalez revive the 3/5 Clause of the Constitution and apply it to the caucasian race.

    White people suck. And I say that as a white person.

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