The Brief

With preparations for the 2030 census already underway, President Donald Trump said Thursday he has instructed his administration to start work on a "new" census.

According to a social media post by Trump, that census would exclude millions of people living in the country without legal status — an unprecedented change to how the country has conducted population tallies since the first U.S. census in 1790.

The 14th Amendment requires the "whole number of persons in each state" to be included in a key set of census numbers used to determine how presidents and members of Congress are elected.

It's unclear if Trump — who, according to the Constitution, does not have final authority over the census — is referring to the regularly scheduled national head count in 2030 or an earlier tally.

Trump said he's instructed the Commerce Department, which oversees the Census Bureau, to "immediately begin work" on a census using "the results and information gained from the Presidential Election of 2024." It's unclear why the election results would matter to the census.

The press offices for the White House, Commerce Department and Census Bureau did not immediately respond to NPR's requests for comment.

Article 1 of the Constitution empowers Congress — not the president — to carry out the "actual enumeration" of the country's population in "such manner as they shall by law direct." In Title 13 of the U.S. Code, Congress directed the secretary of commerce to follow a once-a-decade census schedule.

Under that same law, the commerce secretary can conduct a mid-decade census, in 2025, but the results can't be used for redistributing each state's share of seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and votes in the Electoral College. The law also sets a long-passed deadline for reporting to Congress the question topics for a 2025 census.

Still, while the Constitution has required a census every 10 years for the once-a-decade redistribution of congressional seats, it's not clear whether the results of a mid-decade population tally using a different census date can be used for reapportioning each state's share of House seats and Electoral College votes.

A House bill that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia, introduced last month appears to align with Trump's new census call. That bill calls for not only excluding noncitizens from the apportionment numbers, but also a new census and round of congressional redistricting before the 2026 midterm election.

Asked about the bill, Trump said, "It's going to get in. It's going to pass, and we're going to be very happy."

This year, other Republicans in Congress have reintroduced bills that call for excluding either people without legal status or all people without U.S. citizenship, including green card holders, from the regularly scheduled 2030 apportionment counts.

Trump's census comments on Thursday also come after his vocal push for the Republican Party to attempt to pick up more seats in the U.S. House after next year's midterm election through redistricting. The GOP's gambit to redraw the congressional map in Texas has set off a national political battle, with Democrats in other states preparing potential responses, including their own partisan gerrymandering.

The Census Bureau is in the middle of a years-long process to gear up for the 2030 census. Last month, it released the first version of its operational plan for that count, and it has been scheduled to start recruiting this fall for temporary workers to carry out the "2026 Census Test," a major field test for its 2030 plans that's set to take place in six areas in the South and West.

Trump's 2020 census bid to exclude people without legal status was stopped

Trump's latest push renews similar efforts from his first administration that sparked legal battles. The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately stopped a question about a person's U.S. citizenship status from being added to 2020 census forms but declined to rule on whether people without legal status can be, for the first time in U.S. history, excluded by the president from apportionment counts.

Former President Joe Biden affirmed the longstanding practice of including the total number of persons residing in the states in those tallies with a 2021 executive order, which Trump revoked on the first day of his second term.

Using the census to ask about a person's immigration status has yet to be tested by the Census Bureau.

But research by the bureau shows that using the once-a-decade tally by the federal government to ask the question "Is this person a citizen of the United States?" is likely to produce faulty self-reported data and discourage many households with Latino or Asian American residents from getting tallied in official population totals, which are also used for dividing up trillions in federal funding for public services in communities across the country.

The bureau's researchers have also warned that attempting to produce neighborhood-block level citizenship data with a new census question would be "very costly," harm the quality of other demographic statistics the census produces and yield "substantially less accurate" data than information available from existing government records about people's citizenship status.

The Supreme Court found the first Trump administration's stated justification for a census citizenship question — to better enforce the voting rights of racial minority groups — appeared "contrived." As a result, Trump issued a 2019 executive order that spelled out other reasons for producing citizenship data that would be more detailed than the estimates the bureau already releases.

They included informing immigration policy and eligibility rules for public benefits, and coming up with a count of people in the U.S. without legal status. Another reason the order outlined was allowing state and local governments to draw voting districts that do not account for children and non-U.S. citizens. That radical departure from current standard redistricting practices would be "advantageous to Republicans and Non-Hispanic Whites," a 2015 report by a Republican redistricting strategist concluded. Its legality is an open question before the Supreme Court.

A 2020 presidential memorandum ultimately confirmed another goal for Trump's first push for a citizenship question — data that would allow for the unprecedented exclusion of immigrants in the U.S. without legal status from what are known as the congressional apportionment counts.

Trump's latest census push could spark more lawsuits

The action also follows sweeping executive orders by Trump aiming to curb illegal immigration and expand requirements for proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote.

The Trump administration's latest push to change the census is expected to be challenged with lawsuits.

Additionally, if Trump is referring to the 2030 census, legal experts say that Trump's successor or Congress may — in 2029 — have an opportunity to get rid of any added question about a person's immigration status before it's printed on paper forms for the 2030 census.

The Trump administration's renewed focus on excluding U.S. residents without legal status from the census, however, could fuel public reluctance to participate in the national count, particularly among immigrant communities and Latinos.

While officials in the first Trump administration often emphasized that some past national head counts have asked about people's U.S. citizenship status in some way, census records going back to 1820 show that Trump's proposal bucks centuries of precedent. The federal government has never before used the census to directly ask for the citizenship status of every person living in every household in the United States.

Edited by Benjamin Swasey
Copyright 2025 NPR

Wide-open land on L.A.’s Westside is rare. And where it does exist, it’s extremely expensive. But Santa Monica will soon get a chance to redevelop an amount of land unprecedented in the city’s recent history.

The Santa Monica Airport is set to close at the end of 2028. Residents have supported turning it into a park. Proponents of that approach say all 227 acres should be reserved for green space.

But with rents out of reach for many Westside workers, others are fighting to set aside some land for affordable housing.

“If we don’t do it here, I don't know where we’ll get it done in such big numbers,” said Ralph Mechur, a member of the pro-housing group Cloverfield Commons and a proponent of a measure now aiming to qualify for the November ballot.

The ballot initiative would ask Santa Monica voters to approve using 25% of the airport’s land for 3,000 units of low- and moderate-income housing. The other 75% would be kept as a park.

But park proponents don’t want to sacrifice any of the airport land.

“It's not to do with housing, per se,” said Frank Gruber with the Santa Monica Great Park Coalition. “Somebody could say to me, we need 20 acres to build a laboratory that will guarantee that we will cure cancer — we'd still be opposed to it.

“This land, every square foot, we think of as precious for the park,” he said.

Little affordable housing leads to long commutes

The competing visions for the future of the Santa Monica Airport highlight tensions over creating more affordable housing in wealthy communities where thousands of people work, but can’t afford to live.

One of those workers is Luis Martinez. He spends up to 90 minutes commuting from his home in Canoga Park to his job as a server and bartender at Santa Monica’s Fairmont Miramar Hotel.

Martinez recently worked eight days in a row, picking up shifts from co-workers. It was great for his paycheck, he said, but all those hours stuck in traffic were not great for his wife and 2-year-old son.

“He doesn't see me as much, because I'm always working,” Martinez said. “The time is what makes him miss me. It puts a strain on us.”

Luis Martinez spends hours behind the wheel each day he commutes from his home in Canoga Park to his job in Santa Monica.

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Martinez’s family moved into their one-bedroom apartment three years ago with a monthly rent of $1,900. At the time, he said, they would have needed to spend at least $2,800 to rent a comparable apartment near the Fairmont.

“I cannot afford that,” he said. “I know it's a good place to raise a family. I would love to live there if I could afford it.

Who would live in proposed airport housing?

Martinez belongs to the union Unite Here Local 11, which is helping to collect signatures to qualify the measure for the November ballot.

The measure would ask voters to make half of the 3,000 apartments available to renters earning up to 80% of the area’s median income. The rest would be reserved for middle-income workers earning up to 120% of the area median. If the apartments were built today, L.A. County's current income limits would disqualify individuals earning more than $89,550 and families of four earning more than $127,900.

“It begins to provide housing for our kids, our grandkids, possibly your teachers, janitors, cooks and hotel workers who might be priced out of lower-income affordable housing,” said Mechur, who supports the ballot initiative.

A "for lease" sign hangs on the exterior of an apartment building in Santa Monica.

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In 2014, more than 60% percent of Santa Monica voters supported Measure LC, which instructed the city to “prohibit new development on airport land, except for parks, public open spaces and public recreational facilities.”

But that measure left open the possibility to change plans through another public vote. In the current cycle of state-mandated housing goals, Santa Monica must plan to allow about 6,100 units of affordable housing by 2029.

“Here's an opportunity to build up to 3,000 units in one time period, to help reach numbers that will provide housing for people who need to be in Santa Monica,” Mechur said.

The airport’s history — and future

Planes have been taking off at the Santa Monica Airport site for more than a century. Pilots who flew in and out of the airport include Amelia Earhart and the first team to aerially circumnavigate the globe.

During World War II, the nearby Douglas Aircraft Company built military planes. To provide aerial camouflage during the war, the entire airport was covered with chicken wire, on which Hollywood set designers built lightweight structures made to look like rows of suburban homes.

But by the 1970s, nearby residents were lodging frequent complaints about noise and pollution. After decades of arguments, the Federal Aviation Administration agreed in 2017 to let Santa Monica close the airport after Dec. 31, 2028.

Frank Gruber stands on the observation deck of the Santa Monica Airport, overlooking land he envisions turning into a sprawling public park.

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Frank Gruber, one of the park supporters, said the aviation industry tried to fight closure of the airport by telling residents it could end up being used for high-rise developments. He said changing plans now could reopen the question of keeping the airport.

Plus, Gruber argued, this land is not a great location now that the city has changed policies to encourage affordable housing elsewhere.

“There's no provision for putting schools there,” Gruber said. “There's no provision for supermarkets. They're basically creating isolated super blocks, to use that urbanism kind of expression, where people would be car dependent. It just doesn't make sense.”

‘We want to be part of that community, too’

The ballot measure would not include specific plans for funding new housing. It would only change land use to allow residential development. Proponents say because the city owns the land, housing revenue could help fund park facilities, which the city also needs to budget for.

While driving through slow-crawling traffic along the Sepulveda Pass, Luis Martinez — the Fairmont hotel worker — said his Westside roots run deep.

Martinez grew up in South L.A., but he would wake up early to attend Paul Revere Charter Middle School and Palisades Charter High School. Later, he studied at Santa Monica College.

“I grew up being in traffic,” Martinez said. “I grew up commuting.”

Luis Martinez stands in front of the Fairmont Miramar Hotel in Santa Monica, where he has worked for eight years.

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After eight years of working at the Fairmont Hotel, he said he feels even more connected to Santa Monica. And he believes workers like him deserve a chance to live there.

“It's such a good environment for kids to grow up, and I want my kid to be a part of that,” Martinez said. “Everyone's very involved in what happens in Santa Monica. They're very informed. They're very pro-Santa Monica. It's its own community. Just know that we want to be part of that community, too.”

Ballot initiative proponents need to turn in 7,038 valid signatures by mid-June to qualify for the November ballot.

A new analysis of alerts sent during the Eaton Fire found “no failure” by emergency officials to issue timely evacuation orders to areas west of Lake Avenue in Altadena.

The timing of alerts to neighborhoods west of Lake, where all but one of 19 deaths in that fire occurred, has been under scrutiny since the January 2025 fire.

The independent report by Citygate Associates was commissioned by the L.A. County Fire Department at the start of this year and was released Monday.

Its conclusions are similar to those of after-action reports from other firms — that officials did the best they could amid unprecedented fire conditions and strained resources.

“While the report provides an honest account of our operations, we recognize that no investigation can truly capture the horror and tragedy residents endured,” said L.A. County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone in a prepared statement. “My focus is to ensure that the lessons learned from the Eaton and Palisades fires are turned into lasting changes that will better protect our residents and neighborhoods into the future.”

Altadena resident Zaire Calvin — whose sister died in the fire and whose own home burned down — said the report feels like another “slap in the face.” He said he wanted to see details on any mistakes that may have been made. But reading the report, he felt blame was once again largely placed on unprecedented fire conditions.

“A  community that's already down, a community that's fighting for their lives, a community that's fighting all of the people trying to take property from them — at some point you just want accountability,” Calvin said.

L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who represents Altadena, said in a prepared statement that the “investigation should not be interpreted as dismissing the experiences of residents. Public trust requires both accountability and a willingness to learn from every aspect of a disaster response.”

Citygate Associates, which produced an after-action report on the 2018 Woolsey Fire, used interviews, operational records, dispatch records and internal communications to analyze decisionmaking between 9 p.m. on Jan. 7, 2025, and 6 a.m. the following day.

Some of the main findings include the following:

• With aircraft grounded by  high winds, “Incident Command was forced to fight a fire while blind to its movements.” 
• Evacuation decisions were not based on “race, age or socioeconomics.” 
• “Evacuation planners who created the evacuation zone areas well before the fire tried to use, where possible, major north/south and east/west streets. … Thus, Lake Avenue was a natural, very long street that could be utilized as an anchor for creating evacuation zones.” 
• Other fire timeline reviews cite reports of fire moving westward between 11 p.m. and just before midnight, but Citygate staffers write that strained resources were focused on the eastern front of the fire at that time, which was the direction the fire was initially spreading, and that “fire progression maps … do not show the the Eaton Fire directly impacting western neighborhoods at that time.” 
• The fire initially spread westward more slowly, and did not escalate significantly until early in the morning on Jan. 8.
• Reports of fires before 1 a.m. west of Lake Avenue were likely a result of downed power lines.
• By 2 a.m., radio reports indicated embers were being cast deeper into Altadena. 
• Discussions to expand evacuation orders west started at 2:18 a.m., with evacuation orders being sent to residents west of Lake by 3:25 a.m. 
• The main fire front crossed west of Lake Avenue by about 5:15 a.m. 

Find the full report here. 

Huntington Beach must pay $50,000 for each month it continues to fail to comply with the state’s mandate to zone for more housing, according to a recent court ruling. For several years now, the city has been waging a court battle against the state's order to make way for 40,000 new homes.

The judge ruled that the city should be penalized $10,000 per month going back to January 2025, and then fined $50,000 per month, starting next month, until the city gets a compliant housing element approved.

The backstory

State law requires California cities and counties to plan for enough housing to meet the expected demand over an eight-year time period, including for low-income housing. Huntington Beach, citing its independence as a charter city, has fought its most recent housing allocation all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to review the case last year.

Does the state require cities to actually build that many homes?

No. Cities are not required to actually build housing, but rather to make sure their zoning and land use codes accommodate the amount of housing assigned to them through what’s known as the Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA).

What does the city say?

In a statement, Casey McKeon, the city’s mayor, said the city “strongly opposes these penalties and will continue fighting for the rights of our residents and for the principle of local control against ongoing efforts by the Attorney General to centralize land use authority in Sacramento.”

Is Huntington Beach an outlier?

Yes. Huntington Beach is an outlier in its aggressive fight against the state housing mandates. More than 90% of California’s 539 jurisdictions are in compliance with the state requirement to plan for the amount of housing assigned to them through the latest RHNA cycle.

What’s next?

The city recently posted draft revisions to its housing plan — for the first time since 2021. That’s significant because the city’s efforts to come into state compliance have been paused for years.

One complication with compliance: Huntington Beach residents voted to require any major changes to the city’s zoning, including its state-mandated housing plan, to be put up for a public vote. That could mean more delays in coming into state compliance, and consequently, more fines, at a time when the city is facing a budget crunch.

During a press conference following a shooting at the San Diego Islamic Center, San Diego Police Department Chief Scott Wahl confirmed three adult victims at the center and the two suspects are dead.

Police said the suspects were found dead in the vehicle nearby. They were 17 and 19 years old. The motivation behind the shooting is unknown at this time.

Wahl said in 28 years, this is the most dynamic and impressive response he's seen in policing with help coming from agencies all over the county.

Imam of the Islamic Center of San Diego Taha Hassane said the center stands in solidarity "with all of the families in our community here and all the mosques and places of worship" in San Diego.

"This is something that we never expected, and I would also like to thank all the people who contacted us from all over the country and overseas to offer their condolences."

San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria was also present at the news conference.

"We will do anything it takes to make sure you feel safe in this city," Gloria said.

In a statement, the Council on American-Islamic Relations-San Diego Executive Director Tazheen Nizam said:

“We strongly condemn this horrifying act of violence at the Islamic Center of San Diego. Our thoughts are with everyone impacted by this attack. No one should ever fear for their safety while attending prayers or studying at an elementary school. We are working to learn more about this incident and we encourage everyone to keep this community in your prayers."

The active shooter situation was reported at 11:43 a.m. at ICSD in the 7000 block of Eckstrom Avenue in Clairemont, according to SDPD.

The department is asking people to avoid the area.

A reunification location for those impacted by the incident has been established at 4125 Hathaway Street.

According to our news partner ABC 10News, authorities shut down northbound and southbound Interstate 805 at Balboa Avenue due to the law enforcement activity.

The San Diego Unified School District confirmed several campuses were placed on lock down. SDUSD spokesperson James Canning said lockdowns are gradually being lifted but schools closest to the Islamic Center will be the last to have their lockdowns lifted.

The Islamic Center is the largest mosque in San Diego County. The center holds five daily prayers.