ROCKVILLE, Md. — The Montgomery County Council on Tuesday passed a resolution urging the U.S. Census Bureau to withdraw its proposed rules for the 2030 census, and County Executive Marc Elrich and Council President Natali Fani-González filed the county’s formal comment opposing the plan, the county said.
The Census Bureau, part of the Commerce Department, published the proposal Sept. 10. It would include lawful permanent residents in the apportionment count and exclude people in the country illegally and foreign nationals with temporary status, replace the long-standing “usual residence” standard with the place a person has lawfully spent the most days between Jan. 3 and April 1, and drop self-reported race, ethnicity and sexual orientation questions, among other changes.
The bureau says the Constitution’s requirement to count the “whole number of persons in each State” rests on the concept of usual residence, which it argues has historically included “an element of allegiance,” citing the Supreme Court’s 1992 decision in Franklin v. Massachusetts. The Inquisitor detailed the proposal before Tuesday’s vote.
What the county is asking
The council resolution urges the bureau to keep the 2020 residence standard, restore rules for counting people in nursing homes, shelters, college housing and other group quarters, and not add a citizenship or legal-status question.
The county’s six-page comment, addressed to Commerce Department deputy general counsel Daniel Sweeney, says Montgomery has 1,065,949 residents, about a third born outside the United States, and 151,867 noncitizen residents. The county says it cannot reliably estimate how many would be excluded. It also argues that tax records are an unreliable way to locate residents who do not file returns.
“Here in Montgomery County, we are committed to a complete, accurate and fair census count to ensure every resident is counted once, only once, and in the right place,” Fani-González said.
“Excluding people from the census does not change who lives here,” Elrich said. “It only means fewer resources to serve our residents for the next 10 years.”
Deadline approaching
The public comment period closes Monday, Nov. 2, and the county has asked the bureau to extend it to Dec. 10, the county said. Comments can be filed at regulations.gov under Docket USBC-2026-0628.
The proposal is still in the rulemaking stage, and the bureau has not said when it will issue a final rule.
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