The Trump administration has quietly submitted a regulatory filing that critics warn could ultimately reclassify millions of immigrants — both authorized and unauthorized — as not residing in the United States, according to a report published Friday by The Bulwark.

Reporter Catherine Rampell revealed that the filing appeared on an Office of Management and Budget website, with only its title publicly available: "Decennial Census of the Population of Americans; Proposed Residence Criteria and Proposed Regulations for Demographic Questions." The full text has not yet been made public.

"All that's officially public right now about that proposed rule change is the title, which was published on an Office of Management and Budget website," Rampell cited. She has called on anyone with knowledge of the proposal to come forward.

The regulatory filing follows the administration's earlier, high-profile attempt to add a citizenship question to the census, which officials said was necessary for enforcing "voting rights law." The Supreme Court blocked that question from the 2020 census in 2019, ruling that the administration's stated justification was insufficient. According to Rampell, the new approach appears aimed at rewriting the criteria for what constitutes a "residence" under census rules rather than directly changing how non-citizens are counted.

"Through the census, it can continue the spirit of that campaign. Put another way: If you can't deport every immigrant, you can at least remove evidence they exist," Rampell wrote.

President Donald Trump has spent his first 18 months in office pursuing aggressive immigration enforcement. According to Axios, Trump deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller set a goal of apprehending at least 3,000 immigrants per day across the United States, though the administration has reportedly struggled to meet that target. Individuals awaiting removal proceedings have been held in Department of Homeland Security detention facilities.

Under current law, the census counts every person in the country regardless of immigration status. The count is used to determine the allocation of federal funding for schools, healthcare, housing, food assistance, roads, and child programs, as well as to determine political representation, including the apportionment of all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and Electoral College votes among the states. Fewer people counted could mean reduced funding and diminished representation for affected communities.

"In a way, this is a brilliant idea," Rampell quipped. "After all, 'residence criteria' sounds so . . . benign. It's a thing that usually matters only to the bean-counters within the Census Bureau, who occasionally need guidance about how to categorize where someone lives on the official day of the decennial enumeration, known as 'Census Day' (always April 1, in a year divisible by ten)."

Those Census Bureau staff also handle complex determinations such as how to count students in campus housing, homeless Americans, and individuals living abroad.

The U.S. Constitution does not define "resident" in modern terms. The original text required counting "the whole Number of free Persons" and three-fifths of "all other Persons," while excluding "Indians not taxed." The latter provisions were eliminated by the 14th Amendment. The Constitution does not require individuals to be citizens, nor does it set a minimum duration of residence. The census considers a person's "usual residence," defined as the place where they sleep most often.

The regulatory filing appears in the OMB registry but its substantive content remains undisclosed. The next decennial census is scheduled for 2030.

On his first day in office, Trump eliminated a Biden-era executive order that affirmed "the longstanding practice of including the total number of persons residing in each state in those census results," NPR reported. The Southern Poverty Law Center has also published guidance on the administration's executive actions related to the census.

Legal challenges related to census and apportionment issues are already underway. Louisiana v. Commerce and State of Missouri v. United States Department of Commerce are among the pending cases, and some states are already attempting to have immigrants excluded from their census counts.