David Sacks, chairman of the president’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, claimed during a February episode of his “All-In Podcast” that “Democrats want to thwart mass deportations because illegal immigrants are a vital part of their power base.”

Sacks alluded to post-coronavirus pandemic intra-state migratory patterns that have seen residents abandoning blue states, including California and New York, to settle in Texas, Florida, and other Southern states.

“As a result of that, blue states are expected to lose nine House seats and electoral votes because of the changing population numbers,” he said. “Illegal aliens in blue states have been propping up those numbers, and so, for example, in the last election, President Trump would’ve won an additional nine electoral votes if we had an accurate accounting.” 

The U.S. census has not asked respondents about their citizenship status since 1950, meaning both legal noncitizen residents and undocumented immigrants are included in state population counts used to apportion U.S. House seats and Electoral College votes. Trump proposed adding a citizenship question during his first term but was blocked in court.

But research from both academics and conservative groups suggests removing undocumented immigrants from the census would shift only a handful of seats — not the sweeping advantage critics claim.

Counting illegal immigrants in the census does give states with higher nonlegal populations more weight in those processes. Yet, analyses conducted by the right-leaning Center for Immigration Studies and Oxford University found the exclusion of illegal populations would not have materially changed either House district apportionment or the makeup of the Electoral College, especially when compared to the impact of legal immigrants on population growth.

According to that study, conducted in 2024, the “inclusion of all immigrants” in the 2020 census redistributed 17 House seats — with illegal immigrants accounting for just two of those seats. The Electoral College was similarly affected, as seats there are determined by each state’s total congressional representation. 

The study also modeled apportionment based on 2024 population estimates to account for the massive influx of illegal immigrants into the country during the Biden administration. Even in that higher-migration scenario, 19 seats shifted, but only four seats because of illegal immigrant populations. Those four were largely a wash for both parties, with California and Arizona adding one seat apiece and Texas picking up two seats. Minnesota, Oregon, Ohio, and Tennessee each lost a seat in that process. 

The study, conducted in 2025, examined the inclusion of noncitizens in the U.S. census on every election cycle between 1980 and 2024. 

“In 1980 and 2020, only two seats would have switched states; in 2010, five seats would have switched states. These results are in stark contrast to recent claims that more than 20 seats would change hands if undocumented residents were removed from the data used for apportionment,” the study reads, noting that neither party control of the House nor the results of any presidential elections would have changed across the time frame if a citizenship question were added to the census.

The study’s author, Steve Camarota, told the Washington Examiner that Republicans’ focus on illegal immigrants in census counting is “somewhat misplaced,” and that undocumented populations have a much greater impact on state redistricting plans than the national apportionment process.

“Legal immigration matters so much more to all these questions than illegal immigration because the legal immigrants are just so many more numerous,” Camarota said in an interview. “Our legal immigration policy is redistributing power much more than illegal immigration, but, for whatever reason, Republicans can talk about legal immigration and some of the issues and challenges it creates as easily as they can talk about quantum theory.”

Some also warn that Trump’s deportation agenda could actually hurt red states more than blue ones by shrinking populations in fast-growing Sun Belt states that Republicans dominate.

Charles Kuck, a former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association who has represented more than 700 asylum-seekers, said he sees more illegal immigrants moving out of red states than blue states where they may be sheltered by sanctuary policies.

“I see people that are more often in Texas, Florida, and Tennessee, Arkansas, the Deep South,” Kuck said on a phone call. “In Texas, in Florida alone, there’s got to be millions of [undocumented immigrants]. That’s got to be at least two or three congressional seats altogether, maybe one or two in each state that they’re going to be lacking on.”

Lynn Tramonte, the executive director of Ohio Immigrant Alliance, disagreed, telling the Washington Examiner that Trump’s emphasis on immigration enforcement in blue states likely meant “red states have not been the priority.

“They’ve been trying to make an example out of California, New York, Chicago, so there have been more deportations in those areas,” Tamonte said on a phone call. “If you’re living in a red state where there is proportionally less enforcement, then you’re going to be hunkered down and hoping that you get lucky.”

TRUMP’S IMMIGRATION FOOTING COMES UNSTUCK AS MINNESOTA SHOOTING TURNS INTO ‘OPERATION CLUSTERF***’

The Trump administration touted in January 2026 that it had secured more than 2 million self-deportations since January 2025, more than two-thirds of all undocumented immigrant removals during the president’s second term. White House and Department of Homeland Security officials declined to provide state-by-state data tracking the administration’s total deportations. 

Ultimately, House apportionment and Electoral College weight have already been determined for the 2026 and 2028 election cycles, with the next U.S. Census not scheduled to be held until 2030, and experts across the immigration studies landscape say population movements will be impossible to predict how apportionment may change four years from now.