Who counts in the census?

President Trump makes a bold move which could change how you are represented in Congress.

Ahead./// president trump making a bold move today which could change the face of politics in this country and how you are represented in congress.

Kimt news 3's nick kruszalnicki is live in mason city to explain.

Nick?

Katie and george ?

"* it's a big deal every decade ?

"* filling out your census questionnaire.

The data is used to figure out how federal dollars are distributed and how many seats are in congress.

Now a certain group is getting left out of the equation.

Political analyst rayce hardy says he's catching a whiff of political motivation behind president trump's memorandum.

The memo would exclude undocumented immigrants when figuring out how many congressional seats a state can have.

It's a decision which could cost minnesota big time.

"there could be enough growth in other states that they would take one of ours and we get knocked down to seven.

You're talking over a billion dollars per seat that minnesota gets from the federal government."

Already in december cbs was predicting the land of 10?

"* thousand laks could lose a congressional seat this census.

Politics aside, hardy says he can see the reasoning behind why president trump signed the memo.

"there's the argument, should money be going to people that are here illegally, so that's a valid argument to be made."

Then there's the issue of a presidential memo versus an exeuctive order.

Hardy tells me a memo is a force of law like an executive order, but does not require as much documentation.

"president trump isn't the first person to do a bunch of memos.

Obama, president obama wrote memo after memo.

They're not numbered.

I don't know how many he did.

Executive orders at least are numbered."

The fourteenth amendment to the constitution makes it clear ?

*- the 'whole' number of persons in a state are to be counted and used for divying up congressional seats.

"the civil liberties union has been against this.

As soon as the rumblings of this started, so far, 92 million households have responded to the census.

Just last week, door knockers started hitting the streets to try and count the remaining who have not yet replied.

Live in mason city, nick kruszalnicki, kimt news 3.

Thank you nick.

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