Study Says Immigrants Affect Seat Distribution in U.S. House

Immigration is significantly affecting which states will come out ahead in the redistribution of House seats, says a study released Tuesday.

The Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that favors lower immigration, said the concentration of new immigrants in just a few states, including California, resulted in six states losing House seats after the 1990 census. It predicted that seven more would lose seats after the 2000 census.

That is a “distortion of the political system in which seats are taken away from citizens and reallocated in effect to noncitizens,” said Mark Krikorian, the center’s executive director.

The 435 House seats are redistributed every 10 years based on changes in population.

Immigration groups warned against any disenfranchisement of noncitizens. “Legal immigrants are future Americans so they should be counted,” said Joel Najar of the National Council of La Raza, a Latino advocacy group.

“The founding fathers decided on apportionment by population, not by votes,” said Jeanne Butterfield of the American Immigration Lawyers Assn. “Counting immigrants who live here, pay taxes and serve in the military . . . is consistent with that principle.”

As a result of immigration, California got four new seats after 1990 and will get five more after 2000 that it wouldn’t have been allotted if there had been no immigration, the study concluded.

On the other side, after 1990 Louisiana, Michigan, Montana and Ohio lost seats, and Georgia and Kentucky failed to get seats they would have otherwise received without the immigration factor.