Trump's Order to Exclude Migrants from Voting Districts May Not Be Legally Feasible

Legal experts and civil rights advocates have vowed to shoot down President Donald Trump's attempt to exclude undocumented immigrants from being counted in the census for the purpose of redrawing Congressional districts.

Trump signed a memorandum blocking migrants from being counted on Tuesday, which could have major implications for the partisan makeup of Congress if it stands. However, experts have suggested that the order is likely to be invalidated since the U.S. Constitution demands that districts count "the whole number of persons in each state," without any specification that they be citizens or eligible to vote.

The administration insists that the Constitution "does not specifically define which persons must be included in the apportionment base," and that the word "persons" has "never been understood" to mean people present in a state.

"My Administration will not support giving congressional representation to aliens who enter or remain in the country unlawfully, because doing so would create perverse incentives and undermine our system of government," Trump said in a statement.

An attempt by the president include a citizenship question on the census was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court last year. Some involved in that legal challenge quickly vowed to similarly dismantle Trump's new order.

"No one ceases to be a person because they lack documentation," New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement. "Under the law, every person residing in the U.S. during the census, regardless of status, must be counted."

"We beat the president before in court, and we'll challenge him once again on the census," she added. "We will continue to lead this fight because we will not allow the Trump Administration's anti-immigrant policies to tip the balance of power in the nation."

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a group also involved in last year's challenge, promised to take similar legal action against Trump's new attempt to alter the census.

"The Constitution requires that everyone in the U.S. be counted in the census," said Dale Ho, director of the ACLU's Voting Rights Project. "President Trump can't pick and choose. He tried to add a citizenship question to the census and lost in the Supreme Court."

"His latest attempt to weaponize the census for an attack on immigrant communities will be found unconstitutional," Ho added. "We'll see him in court, and win, again."

Some experts have suggested that the order could be intended as a political ploy to appeal to his base in the November presidential election. They say it could also be nearly impossible to implement from a practical standpoint, since there is no plan on how to determine which respondents might be illegal migrants.

"It's as if [Trump] has ordered the National Basketball Association commissioner to implement rules for the use of anti-gravity boots," Justin Levitt, a Loyola Law School professor and former Justice Department official, told Reuters. "[The commissioner] says anti-gravity boots shall be permitted or shall not be permitted—but they don't exist."

Newsweek reached out to the White House for comment.