Every ten years, the United States pauses to count itself — an act that is never merely statistical, but always political, always a negotiation over who belongs and who is seen. The Trump administration's proposed changes to the 2030 census, which would exclude certain immigrant populations from the apportionment count and remove longstanding questions on race and ethnicity, would alter not just a form, but the very mirror through which the nation understands its own face. At stake is the distribution of political power, federal resources, and the capacity to measure whether the promises of eq