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(CN) — Immigrants living in the country without permission threaten to “hijack control” of the United States’ elections and fundamental governmental processes if they continue to be counted during the census, the State of Missouri claims in a federal lawsuit.
Missouri and four individual plaintiffs sued the U.S. Department of Commerce and the U.S. Census Bureau on Friday, seeking a recount of the 2020 census to include only U.S. citizens.
In a press release, former Missouri House Speaker Hanaway said she would “defend our fundamental right to representation in government” through what she called “the most significant election lawsuit in a generation.”
The 96-page lawsuit traces the dispute to a policy adopted under President Jimmy Carter in 1980.
The policy allows people living in the United States without legal status to be counted in the census, which Hanaway says allows left-leaning states such as California to inflate their populations and gain additional representation at the federal level.
The lawsuit says California and New York “intentionally undermine federal authority by defending the interests” of those residents, reducing representation and federal funding for Missouri and other states.
Hanaway argues Missouri would have gained an additional congressional seat if apportionment had followed the Constitution.
“The framers of the Constitution and the Fourteenth Amendment would have been shocked by this policy. They never could have imagined an absurd system where 15 million trespassers would receive representation in Congress and the Electoral College,” Hanaway said in her press release.
Congressional efforts to repeal the policy stalled in the early 1990s, and an attempt by President Donald Trump to exclude individuals living in the country without permission from the 2020 apportionment was thwarted under Joe Biden.
The policy also counts temporary visa holders, whom Missouri now seeks to exclude from future population totals.
The lawsuit says including people living in the state without permission and visa holders has also complicated Missouri’s redistricting efforts at the state level.
The complaint says Missouri lawmakers have had to rely on “skewed census data” when drawing districts, diluting the voting power of residents, including the plaintiffs.
In their request for relief, the state and individual plaintiffs seek injunctions to declare the 2020 census unconstitutional, recount the 2020 census, recalculate the number of representatives for each state, and preclude any individuals in the United States without permission from being counted in the 2030 census.
“The State of Missouri and its voters can no longer ignore the ongoing denial of their right to self-government and fair representation,” Hanaway said in her press release. “In America, the people, the members of the social compact, are the only legitimate source of the government’s power. We are taking a stand against those who are cheating our system.”
The U.S. Department of Commerce did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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