Donald Trump’s latest scheme is a blatant attempt to divide us and to rig our democracy.

After an unsuccessful push to add a dangerous citizenship question to the 2020 Census, Trump has instead ordered government agencies to hand over all the data they have on people’s citizenship status. He plans to make this aggregate data available to state politicians -- so they can use it to turbo-charge gerrymandering, and deprive millions of our neighbors and their children of political representation.

Not since the three-fifths compromise has the republic used anything but the total number of people when apportioning representation -- and we should not start now. As Alexander Hamilton stated at the Constitutional Convention, “There can be no truer principle than this -- that every individual of the community at large has an equal right to the protection of government.”

Depriving non-citizens and children of representation is the next step in a long-term plan by extremists to undermine our democracy. If we allow them to steal power and resources from vulnerable communities -- drawing districts without counting noncitizens and children under the age of 18 -- who is next? When we are divided, we all fall.

Back in 2015, GOP gerrymandering mastermind Thomas Hofeller theorized that if legislative districts could be drawn based on voting-age citizen population, it would secure a permanent electoral advantage for “Republicans and non-Hispanic whites.” And Hofeller recognized that this plot would be a “radical departure” from our long constitutional history of ensuring that every person living in the U.S. has representation in government.

The only missing piece in Hofeller’s democracy-rigging puzzle? Data about where citizens and non-citizens are currently living -- which is exactly what Trump issued an Executive Order to compile and share with the Census Bureau.

If these power-hungry politicians get their way, they will rig redistricting and our elections for at least a decade. And millions of people -- children, immigrants, and many others -- will be pushed to the margins and erased from society.

We can’t let that happen. Add your name and tell state governments: legislative districts MUST be drawn based on total population!