U.S. Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN) is under fire after invoking the U.S. Constitution’s racist Three-Fifths Compromise—that mandated slaves be counted only as three-fifths of a person—to defend his claim that undocumented immigrants should not be counted at all in President Donald Trump’s push for an unprecedented new census.
The U.S. Constitution is clear and cannot be changed without a constitutional amendment.
Article I, Section 2, Clause 3 states that all “free Persons” shall be counted:
“Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.”
The Fourteenth Amendment adds that “the whole number of persons in each State” is to be counted.
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Senator Hagerty, who in 2022 voted against legislation protecting same-sex and interracial marriages, suggested that there are other interpretations of the Constitution that would ban undocumented immigrants from being counted in a census, and he claimed that blue states only want the undocumented to be counted for “power.”
“This is all about power,” Senator Hagerty told Fox Business on Friday (video below). “This is why you see these sanctuary cities situated in blue states. That is, blue states that are losing citizens to states like mine in Tennessee, they’re losing citizens, they’re backfilling with illegal aliens.”
Undocumented immigrants have always been counted in every census since there have been people considered undocumented.
Not according to Hagerty.
“This is not what the Founding Father has ever intended to count illegals for the purposes of allocating voting power in America,” he claimed.
When the Founders drafted the Constitution, there were no “illegals,” because almost anyone could freely enter the country. Not until 1929 did entering the U.S. without authorization become a federal crime, and only a misdemeanor.
U.S. Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN) is under fire after invoking the U.S. Constitution’s racist Three-Fifths Compromise—that mandated slaves be counted only as three-fifths of a person—to defend his claim that undocumented immigrants should not be counted at all in President Donald Trump’s push for an unprecedented new census.
The U.S. Constitution is clear and cannot be changed without a constitutional amendment.
Article I, Section 2, Clause 3 states that all “free Persons” shall be counted:
“Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.”
The Fourteenth Amendment adds that “the whole number of persons in each State” is to be counted.
READ MORE: Pentagon Ducks Questions on Hegseth’s Support for Christian Nationalist Pastor’s Beliefs
Senator Hagerty, who in 2022 voted against legislation protecting same-sex and interracial marriages, suggested that there are other interpretations of the Constitution that would ban undocumented immigrants from being counted in a census, and he claimed that blue states only want the undocumented to be counted for “power.”
“This is all about power,” Senator Hagerty told Fox Business on Friday (video below). “This is why you see these sanctuary cities situated in blue states. That is, blue states that are losing citizens to states like mine in Tennessee, they’re losing citizens, they’re backfilling with illegal aliens.”
Undocumented immigrants have always been counted in every census since there have been people considered undocumented.
Not according to Hagerty.
“This is not what the Founding Father has ever intended to count illegals for the purposes of allocating voting power in America,” he claimed.
When the Founders drafted the Constitution, there were no “illegals,” because almost anyone could freely enter the country. Not until 1929 did entering the U.S. without authorization become a federal crime, and only a misdemeanor.
Hagerty has a different point of view.
“We should only be counting citizens,” he insisted, promoting legislation he has filed, saying he has 18 co-sponsors.
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“I have a hard time imagining that Democrats can continue to say this is the right way to go for America,” he continued. “It has been the motive behind the crime at our Southern border that President Trump is fixing and the American public is loving it.”
NBC News, just weeks ago, reported that there “has been a clear decline in support for Trump’s handling of immigration.”
Asked point-blank by the Fox Business host, “Is it constitutionally legal to do that?” the Tennessee GOP lawmaker replied, “There’s a constitutional interpretation, I think, that has been misapplied. It goes back to slavery days. And you know, what portion of a person is going to be counted, etcetera.”
“A person here illegally should not be counted,” he insisted. “That’s just common sense. We need to fix it.”
Critics slammed Hagerty.
“Someone should mount a giant blowup of the 14th amendment in the Senate Republican cloakroom, because these people apparently haven’t read it,” suggested Matt Bennett, Executive Vice President for Public Affairs for the think tank Third Way.
“The U.S. Constitution is unambiguous. No ‘interpretations’ have been ‘misapplied,'” wrote communications professional Mathew Helman. “As MAGA tries to reverse-engineer a way around the Constitution, we’ll get lots of dishonest word salad like this.”
“So we’re clear,” wrote Wall Street investment banker Evaristus Odinikaeze, “Sen. Hagerty’s ‘legal rationale’ is to drag us back to the logic of the 3/5 Compromise.”
“Counting human beings as fractions was a moral stain on this country, not a precedent to revive. The Constitution requires an actual enumeration of all persons living in the U.S. Anything less is an attack on democracy itself.”
Watch the video below or at this link.