Get the Ricochet app
Ricochet will work fine in a browser on your mobile devices, but for the best experience please download our app.
The short answer is YES, but not by much. Read on for the details before you decide to flame me.
The biggest problem is data because illegal immigrants don't register their presence anywhere. I first googled for the answer and got the above answer from the usual suspects (NPR, AP, etc.). So I looked for data from a more objective source, settling on the Center for Immigration Studies. They claim to be "an independent, non-partisan, non-profit, research organization" that employs both conservative and liberal scholars. They state that their vision is "a unique pro-immigrant, low-immigration vision which seeks fewer immigrants but a warmer welcome to those admitted." Check out their about page for more information. Wikipedia denounces them as "an American anti-immigration think tank," which adds to their credibility in my eyes.
In an analysis released in October 2024, using census data from the first quarter of 2024 (and which CIS adjusted), they estimated that illegal aliens and their minor children born in the US shifted 1 House seat from a red state to a battleground state. There are 4 more seats that are affected in shifts among blue states, but shifting these 4 seats does not affect the partisan balance. The main reason for there being such a small net effect is that blue California and red Texas are high illegal immigration states, each gaining two seats from illegal immigration.
However, all immigration (both legal and illegal) has a significantly larger net impact, having shifted 15 seats to blue states on net, with 11 of the extra seats coming from red states and 4 from battlegrounds. The big winners from all immigration are California (+10), Florida (+4), Texas (+4), New York (+3), and New Jersey (+2). The losing states are Ohio (-3), Pennsylvania (-2), and Tennessee (-2), with 17 states losing 1 each.*
Now for a couple of caveats: First, the impact of immigration from April 2024 to present is not included in the above apportionment estimates. CIS estimates that the illegal population has increased from 13.6 million in March 2024 to 15.6M in January 2025. Although they estimate that the illegal population fell by 1.0 million from January to May 2025, they also did not include this in their analysis. Second, they allocate the illegal population among the states in proportion to the legal, non-citizen population in each state. To the extent that some states with high legal, non-citizen populations (possibly Texas and Florida) are less welcoming to illegals, this would bias their allocation of illegals among the states.
My conclusion is that illegal immigration does not really affect the partisan balance, but we should be aggressively deporting illegals anyway because of their corrosive effect on society and because unchecked illegal immigration would have dramatically impacted the partisan balance by 2030.
But legal immigration is dramatically impacting the partisan balance and society. We cannot assimilate this many immigrants, many of whom do not share American values. The foreign-born population in January 2025 was 53M, or 16% of the population, both of which are the highest since 1790. Trump's proposal for a mid-decade census that excludes illegals would have little impact on the partisan balance, but it would strengthen the argument that apportionment under the 14th Amendment should not include illegals.
Now you may flame away :-)
*CIS has a table that details the impact on the apportionment for each state.
Discussion (25)
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
Thanks much, Steve. You’ve done a lot of work to give us this data.
I do have a question, though. Why is it not always the case that for a given State and year,…
…?
For example, with State=‘California’, Year = 2024
.All Immigrants and Minor Children = 10
.Non-Citizens and Minor Children = 3
.Illegal Immigrants and Minor Children = 2
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
I think elected representative apportionment should be based on citizen population only. Non-citizens (both legal and illegal, regardless of whether they are on a "path to citizenship") should be excluded from the counts used to apportion elected representative districts.
As a practical matter, apportionment is often used to allocate government largesse (money) to representative districts based on population. If there's going to be government largesse, the priority should be to get it to citizens. Non-citizens should be here only because they contribute more to the community around them than they take (producers). The current system encourages unproductive (taker) non-citizens to come and/or remain.
As a philosophical matter, apportioning elected representation by including non-citizens provides citizens who surround themselves with non-citizens a proportionally greater vote than have citizens who are not surrounded by non-citizens. [The citizen in a district with a million adults, only 3/4 of whom are citizens able to vote has proportionally more voting power than the citizen in a district with a million adults, all of whom are citizens able to vote. ] Citizens who seek to increase their own political power have incentive to import and to surround themselves with non-citizens (legal and illegal immigrants).
[Small potential issue: I was unclear from the data as presented about the impact of foreign-born population on partisan power balance whether the data distinguished the foreign-born who had become naturalized citizens. ]
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
Is this in a world without Gerrymandering? Because in a world of Gerrymandering, the Dems are able to turn extra Congressional representatives into extra Democrat reps.
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
It didn't matter so much in the early days of the Republic but it does now, largely because we have become a welfare state.
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
And global transportation is cheap and easy. Back when it cost a years wages to cross the ocean and the mortality rate was 50%, you only got competent immigrants.
You're seeing five of 25 comments. Sign in, or join for just $5 per month, to read them all and add your own.