The U.S. Supreme Court ruled this week that the White House request to the Census Bureau to modify the population count to exclude undocumented immigrants was not ripe. The per curiam opinion explained that it was premature to resolve the issue of whether the order was constitutional since there were no apportionment numbers available at the time of the oral argument and there was no certainty how the Bureau would implement the memorandum.
The wording of the memorandum ordering the Census Bureau to modify the population count gave considerable latitude to officials regarding how and to what extent it would exclude “aliens” from the apportionment count. Presumably, the Bureau would have to use its discretion to remove different categories of aliens from the count while abiding by existing legal and practical constraints.
During oral argument, the government repeatedly confirmed that it did not know at the time how much of the alien population it would be able to identify for removal. Given these procedural uncertainties, the court concluded that there was no action as of yet on which to make a legal decision. Thus, “judicial resolution of this dispute is premature.”
