Could Blue States Boxing Out ICE Give Democrats Upper Hand In Next Census?

A nationwide push by Democrats to stifle immigration enforcement could save their party from major losses in the next Census.

Democrats are working across the country to bolster sanctuary policies that would make it more difficult to arrest and repatriate illegal migrants, as liberal lawmakers capitalize off two chaotic enforcement operations that led to deadly shootings. By protecting illegal migrant populations in blue states, the efforts could be enough to help stave off anticipated losses for their party in the 2030 apportionment forecast, an immigration expert told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“By hindering immigration enforcement with their sanctuary policies, they’re doing two things: They’re forcing ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] officers into the community to make arrests of dangerous criminal aliens, but they’re also preventing ICE from making arrests of other individuals who are in the U.S. illegally,” Art Arthur, a resident fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, said to the DCNF.

“The harder that those sanctuary states make it for ICE to do its job, the fewer people ICE is going to be able to remove, and the more people who will be present in 2030 to be counted for the decennial census,” Arthur continued.

Under current population trends, data analysts predict blue states could take a beating after the 2030 Census is completed and congressional seats are divvied up again.

California is poised to lose four congressional seats while New York is expected to lose two seats, as both of the deep blue states deal with stagnating populations, according to an analysis by the Redistricting Network. At the same time, the Republican strongholds of Texas and Florida are expected to gain four seats each.

#NEW: 2030 Apportionment Forecast based on 2025 Census Bureau Population Estimates (January 27, 2026).

Forecast prepared by Dr. Jonathan Cervas (CMIST) at Carnegie Mellon University pic.twitter.com/DACPg0Nldf

— The Redistrict Network (@RedistrictNet) January 27, 2026

The liberal strongholds of Rhode Island, Minnesota, Illinois and Oregon are all expected to lose one congressional seat each, according to the Redistricting Network.

The five states with the largest population declines from domestic migration were California, New York, Illinois, New Jersey and Massachusetts, according to the American Redistricting Project. The five states with largest population growth from domestic migration were Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida and Tennessee.

However, every state in the union experienced population growth due to international migration. Experts suggest blue states could utilize anti-ICE policies to bolster their standing ahead of the 2030 Census.

“Will it make an impact? Potentially,” Arthur said, noting his only hesitation is if the Trump administration takes steps that would largely force illegal migrants to leave, no matter the sanctuary haven. The long-time immigration expert strongly encouraged the White House to implement E-Verify on a national scale, requiring every employer in the U.S. to verify the employment status of individuals they seek to hire.

“So long as the census continues to count persons in the United States rather than citizens in the United States, you’re going to see these kinds of impacts on apportionment,” Arthur stated. “The states that have the largest unauthorized populations, aside from Florida and parts of Texas, are in Democratic run states.”

Renee Good, an American citizen, was killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis on Jan. 7 after allegedly weaponizing her vehicle and forcing the agent to fire defensive shots. Later that month, Alex Pretti, an American citizen strapped with a firearm, was killed amid a scuffle with Border Patrol agents.

The back-to-back incidents sparked intense backlash across the country, including calls for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to resign. Democrats also triggered a partial federal government shutdown as they demanded a series of reforms be imposed on deportation officers, such as the removal of face masks on agents and tougher regulations around arrest warrants.

However, more dramatic action is being taken at state and local offices where Democrats control the levers of power.

Democratic Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger rolled back an executive order in January that directed state law enforcement officials to assist ICE and other federal immigration authorities. The state’s Legislature, also controlled by Democrats, introduced several bills that would further hinder ICE’s ability to take custody of criminal illegal migrants, including bans on operations in courthouses or near polling stations.

Several weeks prior, Democratic Maine Gov. Janet Mills allowed a sanctuary bill to go into law and rescinded an executive order promoting ICE cooperation in her state.

“ICE is creating fear and confusion across the county — including among U.S. citizens and other people who are here legally — and that fear is undermining public safety,” Democratic Buffalo Mayor Sean Ryan said while announcing a sanctuary executive order in January forbidding city personnel and resources for federal civil immigration enforcement.

Maryland Democrats rushed emergency legislation to block ICE cooperation after a new detention facility was announced in late January. In New York, California and elsewhere, Democrats are pushing legislation to enable people to more easily sue ICE agents deployed in their neighborhoods, potentially opening up the Department of Homeland Security to mountains of litigation that would hamstring enforcement operations.

During President Donald Trump’s first year back inside the Oval Office, more than 622,000 illegal migrants have been deported. Another 1.9 million illegal migrants chose to self-deport during that time. The hardline immigration enforcement agenda has contributed to the U.S. achieving negative net migration for the first time in decades.

Redistricting is a re-drawing of a state’s congressional districts that is required to take place after the Census, which occurs every decade as required by the Constitution. In states where they have control, GOP and Democrat politicians are already battling tooth-and-nail to reconfigure maps in their party’s favor, a process known as gerrymandering.

Democrats have suggested in the past that they wish to use mass migration in their favor, such as when New York Democrat Rep. Yvette Clarke spoke on Haitian immigration during an October 2021 congressional committee hearing.

“I’m from Brooklyn, New York,” Clarke said at the time. “We have a diaspora that can absorb a significant number of these migrants and that, you know, when I hear colleagues talk about the doors of the inn being closed [and] no room in the inn, I’m saying I need more people in my district just for redistricting purposes.”

Some population analysts say that the complete removal of the illegal immigration population would not necessarily be a complete loss for the Democratic Party.

“Taking the unauthorized immigrants out of the apportionment population would cost the Republicans a seat,” Jeffrey Passel, a senior demographer at Pew Research Center, told the DCNF.

Passel noted that Texas holds a significant illegal migrant population while a slate of blue states, such as Oregon and Minnesota, do not. At the same time, he said it can be difficult to fully account for the illegal population in the Census, as they are naturally a difficult group to track.

“We get data every month from the Current Population Survey. It’s used to measure unemployment, and we’re seeing a decline in the immigrant population in that survey,” Passel continued. “We know that the immigrant population is likely getting smaller because there’s hardly any immigrants, legal or otherwise, coming in and some immigrants are always leaving, and in addition, they are deporting immigrants.”

Trump sought to exclude illegal migrants from the Census during his first term in office, a move blocked by the courts. In August 2025, the Republican president announced an order for a new Census that excluded the authorized population, but so far no major changes have been made and illegal migrants are expected to be counted in the next Census — opening the door for this group to be utilized.

“The current method of counting illegal immigrants for purposes of representation serves as a perverse incentive for open borders to boost the relative political power of the states and voters that court it,” stated an October 2025 press release from Florida GOP Sen. Ashley Moody.

Moody, working alongside a handful of other Republican senators, introduced the Equal Representation Act, legislation ensuring that only legal citizens were factored into the count for congressional districts.

“After years of open borders under Biden, states like California have unfairly inflated their electoral counts by including illegal immigrants, boosting their political power while diluting the vote from actual Americans,” Moody stated during the bill’s rollout. “We are fighting to ensure that our voter rolls and congressional representation accurately reflects our citizenry.”