Woodrow-Lafield, Karen A. 2001 “Implications of Immigration for Apportionment,” Population Research and Policy Review 20(4):267-289.



Around the time of the US decennial censuses, a renewed interest in the method for apportioning the US House of Representatives emerges. Definition of certain groups as included in the apportionment counts and coverage levels for selected groups also have often been debated in the judicial system, legal journals, and government. Unauthorized residents, and, sometimes, lawful immigrants, are often singled out as a group that should be excluded for apportionment purposes. Doing so would be extremely difficult, and illustrating the effects of these groups’ inclusion is problematic due to poor measures nationally and geographically. The analysis considers the effect of several approximate distributions. The apportionment for 2000 might differ slightly without recently entered unauthorized residents or without all unauthorized residents. Allowing for additional authorized immigrants in the 1990s might have little effect.

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