"The inclusion of aliens, whether legal or illegal, in the population used to draw new boundary lines for congressional, state legislative, and local city council and other offices dilutes the votes of U.S. citizens and distorts their representation and political power within legislative bodies. Since the U.S. decennial census is not currently obtaining citizenship data on the population of the country, states should conduct their own censuses that determine the number of their residents who are citizens and the number of residents who are aliens. Each state should then use only the citizen population when deciding on its legislative redistricting plans."