Census

Although the U.S. Constitution mandates a census of the population every ten years in order to apportion to each state the number of its Representatives in the House, overseas Americans are systematically excluded from that enumeration.

The Census Bureau maintains that it lacks the means to identify and count U.S. citizens residing abroad. AARO contends that since Americans are taxed on the basis of their nationality rather than their place of residence, this situation is tantamount to taxation without representation. If we are to move forward in our quest to establish better representation for overseas Americans, we must be able to establish who, where and how many we are.

AARO is pledged to seek a way for U.S. citizens abroad to be taken into account in the apportionment of House seats. The next decennial census will be in 2010 and, once again, Americans abroad will not be included. In the meantime, AARO will continue to look for credible study groups that could conduct a serious survey of the 6.6 million Americans living overseas.