>>512502207
>Why would they ever count?
Because of a vaguery of language in the Constitution that says the Census counts "the whole number of persons in each state". Obviously, intentionality has a very strong stance on this and this has been legally argued since forever but we've never had a specific and defining Supreme Court ruling on it.
Trump actually challenged the concept when he was fighting to get illegals off the census in 2020, but the Court didn't give a ruling and instead dismissed it saying it was "premature to rule at this time". The three Liberal justices said, naturally, illegals should be on the census.
The Supreme Court also blocked Trump from adding a citizenship question to the census in 2019.
So the answer is: It's not unconstitutional to exclude them, it hasn't been properly challenged and ruled on in court, and honestly we might as well fucking do it because if we don't it only gets worse.