The state of Missouri early this year sued the Department of Commerce to force something that would have once been considered radical: That the federal government exclude certain immigrants from the population count when apportioning political power and distributing federal funds.
Less than a year after the lawsuit was filed, however, the Census Bureau has proposed to do just that.
On Tuesday, a judge granted Missouri’s request to dismiss the case.
A senior judge for the Eastern District of Missouri ordered the case dismissed without prejudice, meaning plaintiffs can renew their suit against the government, on Tuesday afternoon.
Missouri’s notice of dismissal came only after the Census Bureau published its controversial new rule which takes the first steps to exclude millions of immigrants from the census count by changing how the Bureau defines a person’s usual residence and by pitching a future immigration status question. But the rule is far from finalized. It must first undergo a 30-day public comment period which is sure to yield strong opposition to the rule, feedback which federal agencies have previously considered prior to finalizing a new policy.
Nevertheless, it appears the unfinished Census Bureau rule has satisfied Missouri’s dubious legal argument that undocumented and other classifications of immigrants should not count toward a state’s population to be used for congressional apportionment or for the distribution of federal funds. The rule cites and incorporates legal arguments from Missouri’s suit.
In a statement provided to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway’s office said it dismissed the case in light of the Census Bureau proposed rule.
“The proposed rule agrees with our understanding of the law and even cites our complaint,” Hanaway’s office told the publication in a statement. “Going forward, we will focus on assisting the Trump Administration defend what we anticipate will soon be a final rule. We will continue fighting to ensure citizens’ voices are never diluted in favor of illegal immigrant trespassers.”
In July and September, the Department of Commerce filed a motion to stay court proceedings in the case, suggesting its then-impending rule would address the plaintiff’s issues.
The Census Bureau’s latest moves represent an evolution of President Donald Trump’s unsuccessful first-term attempt to include a citizenship question on the census. Back then, the court found the administration lied about its reasons for wanting to include a citizenship question. The Trump administration maintained at that time that the question would be used to better enforce aspects of the Voting Rights Act.
This time, the mask is off. The Census Bureau in its new residence rule wrote that it found “merit in” legal argument that all immigrants except lawful permanent residents “should not be included in the apportionment count.”
The rule would also dispense with recording race, ethnicity, and certain gender attributes. Race has been included on every census since 1790.
Missouri filed its case in January to force the Department of Commerce and the Census Bureau to exclude undocumented immigrants and people with temporary visas from the census population count taken every 10 years. Including certain immigrants in that count, the suit argued, gave blue states with higher immigrant populations more seats in Congress and more Electoral College votes, and took away one congressional seat and an Electoral College vote Missouri would’ve otherwise received in 2020. The same harm, the suit alleged, would be perpetuated in 2030 unless the Census Bureau dramatically altered the way it counts U.S. residents by excluding a large swath of immigrants for the first time in history.
Missouri’s suit blames a 1980 policy by President Jimmy Carter which merely affirmed the historic practice of counting all residents of the country regardless of immigration status. The 1980 census sought to mitigate an undercount of these groups through intentional outreach, but not through the adjustment of any legal standard regarding the counting of all persons, as required by the 14th Amendment.
In moving to dismiss its suit even prior to the finalization of the Census Bureau’s embattled rule, attorneys for Missouri appear to expect that the rule will move forward in time for the 2030 Census.
The Missouri Attorney General’s Office did not immediately respond to TPM requests for comment. The Commerce Department, Census Bureau, and White House also did not immediately respond to TPM requests for comment.
I can’t wait to see the tap dancing by the originalists on SCOTUS. Perfect time to bring back the Salem witch trials!
Yay for counting chickens before they’re hatched, I guess. We need a corollary for Poe’s Law: are the GOP pols in Missouri as stupid as they appear or just supremely cynical in their specious arguments trying to subvert the constitution for political gain? And same for the Census Bureau folks who are trying to go along with it.
¿Por que no los dos?
Re-posting (from the article) the link to the Federal Register for the 30-day comment period on the proposed rule, “Decennial Census of the Population of Americans; Proposed Residence Criteria and Proposed Regulations for Demographic Questions.”
A Proposed Rule by the Census Bureau on 09/10/2026
I’ve submitted a comment on only one proposed rule since Trump II began, but it was in an area where I felt I had a little expertise or at least “lived experience,” as they say. But 30 days from September 10 leaves a lot of time for others who are in a position to make good comments on this subject to do so. Who knows, it might be material in some court case down the road, however dismissive the administration will be in the short term.