# 2030 Census Residence Rule The proposed rule **"Decennial Census of the Population of Americans; Proposed Residence Criteria and Proposed Regulations for Demographic Questions,"** signed by Commerce Secretary [[Howard Lutnick]] on September 8, 2026, placed on public inspection September 9 and published at **91 FR 57524 on September 10, 2026** (RIN 0607-AA75, Docket No. 260903-0005). It would create two new parts of the Code of Federal Regulations — 15 CFR Part 60 (residence criteria) and 15 CFR Part 70 (demographic questions). **Comments are due October 13, 2026.** It is the first attempt to narrow the apportionment base by **notice-and-comment rulemaking** rather than by presidential memorandum, and that procedural choice is the most consequential thing about it. ## What it would do **Narrow who counts.** Proposed § 60.4 would count, for apportionment, only U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents; "all other citizens of foreign countries as of April 1 of a decennial census year" would be "not counted for apportionment." The preamble grounds this in a reading of "usual residence" as requiring "allegiance, durable permission from the sovereign to settle within the United States, and establishment of domicile," and concludes that people without lawful status "are not true inhabitants, members of the body politic, or persons with a 'usual residence' in the United States." The Bureau invites comment on "whether other forms of legal status are materially similar to lawful permanent resident status" — meaning refugees, asylees, and temporary visa holders fall outside the counted class as drafted, with their treatment left open to the comment record rather than named in the text. **Redefine residence itself.** Proposed § 60.2 would define "usual residence" as the residence where a person "lawfully spent the greatest number of days" during a **January 3 to April 1** enumeration period, "consistent with, and evidenced by, their tax records." The word *lawfully* is doing structural work: a residence occupied without lawful status cannot be a usual residence at all. The Bureau states it "is considering utilizing its enormously broad access to administrative records to determine an individual's legal status," naming Treasury, HHS, DHS, State, the Department of War, USPS, state, local and tribal records, and third-party commercial data. **Float a legal-status question.** The rule proposes no question text. It says the Bureau "could, in addition, include a question about legal status on the short-form decennial census questionnaire," citing [[Department of Commerce v. New York]] for the proposition that the Enumeration Clause permits asking, and "welcomes comments" on doing so. Reporting that described the rule as proposing the question outright is running ahead of the document. **Remove race and ethnicity from the count.** Proposed § 70.2(a) would bar any question about race, ethnicity, or sexual orientation from the decennial questionnaire; § 70.2(c) would make every demographic question other than biological sex, date of birth, and household relationship voluntary. § 70.4 preserves race and ethnicity questions on the [[American Community Survey]]. The preamble cites [[Louisiana v. Callais]], *Allen v. Milligan* (2026), and the Thomas concurrence in [[Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard]] for a colorblindness rationale — see [[Colorblindness]]. **Rework the overseas and military counts.** Proposed §§ 60.5 and 60.6 would allocate deployed and stationed federal personnel using tax records and Department of War administrative data rather than the 1970-era home-of-record declaration. Persons confined at correctional or detention facilities would still be counted at the facility (§ 60.9) — see [[Prison Gerrymandering]]. ## Why the procedural posture matters The 2020 attempt ran through a presidential memorandum of July 21, 2020, and died on ripeness in [[Trump v. New York]] without a merits ruling; [[Franklin v. Massachusetts]] had already held the presidential transmittal is not reviewable agency action. A legislative rule is different. It is agency action, it has a comment record, and it is squarely reviewable under the [[Administrative Procedure Act]] — including for the pretext problem that sank the 2020 citizenship question in [[Department of Commerce v. New York]]. The administration has traded an unreviewable instrument for a reviewable one, and gained a rule that survives a change of occupant in a way a memorandum does not. Both proposed parts carry strong severability clauses (§ 60.11, § 70.5), and the preamble states each stands independent of the other if one is stayed. ## What the rule does not say - **No effective date** appears anywhere in the document, and it does not state which census it would first govern — only "for decennial census enumeration moving forward." - **13 U.S.C. § 141(f) is never mentioned.** The statutory subjects report due April 2027 and questions report due April 2028 are the deadlines that actually gate what appears on the form, and the rule is silent on them. - The authority sections cite **13 U.S.C. 4, 5, and 141** — not the [[Fourteenth Amendment]]. The preamble discusses the amendment only to argue it did not change the meaning of "persons" in Article I. ## See also - [[How a Census Question Is Added or Removed]] — the four routes onto the census form, and why this rule is the first to travel the regulatory one - [[How the Census Apportions Congress]] — the pipeline this rule attacks, and the step at which review attaches - [[2030 Census]] · [[Census Citizenship Question]] · [[Census Undercount]] — the count, the recurring question, and the error it produces - [[Missouri v. Department of Commerce]] — the parallel litigation seeking the same outcome; the federal defendants moved to stay it, and Missouri voluntarily dismissed it on September 18, 2026, citing this rule - [[Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929]] — why the base is zero-sum in the first place - [[Differential Privacy]] · [[Redistricting Timeline 2025-2026]] · [[2026 Midterms Hub]]