He’s at it again: meddling with the Census, and the Constitution.

On Tuesday, President Trump signed another one of those executive orders he’s so fond of, this time trying exclude undocumented immigrants from being counted by the Census.

That would exclude such immigrants from being tallied next year, when seats in the House of Representatives are reapportioned, as they are every 10 years.

“Apportionment” refers to the process of drawing voting maps for congressional districts, based on population. As populations shift geographically, some states inevitably gain or lose representation in the 435-seat House.

Trump has tried to rig the census before, by trying to force respondents to state if they were citizens. He was foiled by the Supreme Court last year.

This time, experts and opponents are scoffing at what they see as a blatantly unconstitutional gambit.

It is flagrantly unconstitutional to exclude people from the Census count based on their immigration status. The Constitution requires that every person be counted. This is another attempt by Trump to use scaremongering against immigrants & rig the system. https://t.co/bOHZxBP6aG

— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) July 21, 2020

The 14th Amendment to the Constitution clearly states that congressional representation must be apportioned based on “the whole Number of free Persons” in a voting district. There is nothing about excluding non-citizens from being counted.

“That means House seats are divvied up based on everyone present in the 50 states, not just based on those lawfully present,” Joshua Geltzer of the Georgetown University Law Center told CNN.

In his order, Trump Trump says the word “persons” “has never been understood to include … every individual physically present within a state’s boundaries.” 

That’s false.

Census experts note that “federal laws have reinforced that apportionment must include everyone, and U.S. Supreme Court precedent has endorsed that view,” says the Associated Press.

JUST IN: President Trump has signed a presidential memorandum that would exclude undocumented immigrants from being counted in congressional districts when district lines are redrawn next year https://t.co/xaGVVmpYy0

— CNN (@CNN) July 21, 2020

Trump’s memorandum also says that “respect for the law and protection of the integrity of the democratic process warrant the exclusion of illegal aliens from the apportionment base, to the extent feasible and to the maximum extent of the President’s discretion under the law.”

For Trump, that word “feasible” is crucial: the Census, which is now taking place across the country (more than 90 million households have responded), doesn’t ask if an individual is in the U.S. legally, or not.

So how is anyone to determine how many non-citizens are being counted?

Dale Ho, director of the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project, predicts the courts will once again protect constitutional integrity.

“The Constitution requires that everyone in the U.S. be counted in the census,” Ho said in a statement. “President Trump can’t pick and choose. He tried to add a citizenship question to the census and lost in the Supreme Court … We will see him in court, and win, again.”

Paul Waldman, columnist for the Washington Post, suggests that the president’s goal is not to actually “wish the 14th Amendment out of existence,” but to intimidate non-citizens, convince them not to answer the census.

“It doesn’t even matter if eventually the Trump administration loses in court, which it will,” Waldman writes. “Just spreading the idea that non-citizens won’t be counted is enough.”