Congressman Warns 10 Million Illegal Immigrants Could Translate to 13 New Congressional Districts

Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN) on Capitol Hill, on June 23, 2021. Sarah Silbiger-Pool/Getty Images

Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.) has claimed that if the more than ten million people who have illegally crossed the border in recent years are accurately allocated in certain areas, it could lead to 13 additional congressional districts favoring Democrats in future elections.

When President Joe Biden took office in 2021, he signed an executive order requiring the Census Bureau to determine the population of each state in the United States without regard to residents’ lawful immigration status.

Last month, Mr. Hagerty and a group of other Republican senators proposed legislation to prevent illegal immigrants from being counted in the national census, citing fears that they would be counted toward the apportioning of House seats and the Electoral College. The legislation was recently defeated by a 45-51 vote after failing to secure even a single Democratic vote in the Senate.

In a March 11 interview on Fox Business, Mr. Hagerty argued that the electoral power illegal immigrants could grant Democrats in upcoming elections is the only plausible explanation for their inaction on the border crisis.

“They want these illegal migrants in here to create more electoral power for them in their blue states. They’re basically creating sanctuary cities to be a magnet, so these people will disproportionately flow to these blue states,” Mr. Hagerty said.

“Since Joe Biden came into office, the estimates are as high as ten million people that have come in here, that would be 13 extra congressional districts if you allocated them the right way,” he added.

Record numbers of illegal immigrants and illicit drugs have been flowing into America since President Biden took office. At the moment, it’s estimated that more than 10 million illegal immigrants have hopped the border.

According to Mr. Hagerty, the sheer number of illegal immigrants is a “tremendous amount of power,” that will result in Democrat voters having “disproportionately more power than they are giving my voters in Tennessee.”

He also claims U.S. citizens are fleeing sanctuary cities in droves due to the vast numbers of illegal immigrants.

A sanctuary city is a jurisdiction where authorities may limit cooperation with the federal government’s efforts to enforce immigration law. At the moment, roughly 200 cities, counties, and states are considered sanctuary cities in the United States, with New Orleans and New York City among them.

“Citizens are leaving New York. They’re leaving Illinois. They’re leaving California, where the sanctuary city is located,” Mr. Hagerty said.

“New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, they’re actually creating these magnets so they can backfill and create more ‘bodies’ to count so that they can get more electoral votes.”

On more than one occasion, New York Mayor Eric Adams has asked for more federal funding to deal with the flood of people coming into the city. Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office also revealed that the city will allocate about $2.4 billion for the next fiscal year to accommodate the needs of New York City’s growing illegal immigrant population.

According to Mr. Hagerty, a video showing a Democrat congresswoman openly calling for more illegal immigration to her New York congressional district because she “needs more people in her district for redistricting purposes,” only further proves his point.

“Her district, the same one that Chuck Schumer used to have when he served in the Congress, her district, the school, to go home and study on Zoom because they needed that schoolhouse to house illegal migrants,” Mr. Hagerty said.

“That’s what’s happening here in America, that’s the motive behind the crime at our border.”

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been vocal about the subject as well. He also claims that the increase in illegal immigrants in the United States will boost the Democrats and is likely to result in even more being allowed into the country in the future.

“If Dems win President, House & Senate, with enough seats to overcome filibuster, they'll grant citizenship to all illegals & America will become a permanent one-party deep socialist state,” he said.