Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall and U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Huntsville, have filed a lawsuit to block a Census Bureau rule that will count people in the country illegally in determining the population of states in the 2020 Census.

The lawsuit, filed by Marshall on behalf of the state, claims that Alabama will lose one U.S. House seat and one vote in the Electoral College because of the rule.

The decennial census is used to apportion seats in the House, which also determines the number of Electoral College votes.

"Congressional seats should be apportioned based on the population of American citizens, not illegal aliens," Brooks said in a press release. "After all, this is America, not the United Nations.

Marshall and Brooks claim the rule violates the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and other federal laws and is inconsistent with the constitutional goal of equal representation.

"The Constitution does not permit the dilution of our legal residents' right to equal representation in this manner," Marshall said in the press release.

They filed the lawsuit Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama.

Alabama has seven seats in the U.S. House and nine votes in the Electoral College. The lawsuit says that will drop to six seats and eight votes if the census number used to determine those includes people who came into the country illegally or immigrants who entered legally but have overstayed their visas.

The lawsuit says that Louisiana, Missouri and Ohio lost House seats after the 2010 Census because people in the country illegally were included. It says that California gained two House seats and Texas and Florida gained one each because of the rule.

If the Census Bureau rule stays in place, the lawsuit says Ohio will also lose a seat, Montana will fail to gain a seat it otherwise would and California will not lose a seat it otherwise would.

In addition to the representation issue, Alabama also stands to lose federal funding that is based on the census, the lawsuit says. That includes federal dollars for highways, programs for children, low-income families, health care and others.

The Census Bureau reported in 2015 that Alabama's population had grown 1.7 percent since 2010, ranking 36th among states in growth rate.

Alabama's population, 4.86 million, ranked 24th among states but had been surpassed by faster-growing South Carolina at that time.

Edited at 2:28 p.m. to correct Alabama's expected number of votes in the Electoral College if the rule on counting illegal immigrants is not changed.

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