Alabama has sued the U.S. Census Bureau, arguing that the Bureau deprives the state of representation in the U.S. House of Representatives by including illegal immigrants in the census count. Hans A. von Spakovsky contends that counting illegal immigrants devalues the votes of Alabama’s legal residents and deters states with large illegal immigrant populations from cooperating with federal immigration authorities. Sam Levine reports that a number of legal experts question the historical support for Alabama’s contention that the definition of “persons” in the Fourteenth Amendment was understood at the time to include only persons legally in the country.
