Newly released census data show, for the first time, that the total population of children in America under 15 is now majority nonwhite.

Any future political maps that exclude those children and noncitizens would further depress the power of urban areas that tend to vote Democratic and that are already structurally disadvantaged in redistricting.

Groups that sued to block the citizenship question argue that the Trump administration’s true goal — hinted at in recent documents unearthed in the litigation — is to set this chain of events in motion. Even without these larger changes, a citizenship question that deters some immigrants from participating in the census could affect congressional apportionment…

Any change would be particularly meaningful in Texas, where the citizen voting-age population is 10 percentage points more non-Hispanic white than the state as a whole. The citizen voting-age population is also 20 points more white than the state’s child population.