Illegals are quite different than legal non-citizens. Your conflation of the two is disingenuous. And yes, the illegals are getting exploited. They can't take their grievances to the local authorities for adjudication. They can't complain about their landlord. They can't complain about their teachers. They can't complain about employers working conditions. I saw this firsthand with some Albanians whose children were going to a public school. The teacher knew they were illegal and threatened to expose them and have them deported if they didn't do what he (the teacher) wanted. I even met the teacher later - he was a jerk.

"People who do not vote are not exploited for political power. "

That's one of the primary reasons California is fighting this: they want the representation which comes with the extra population of illegals whom they are importing left and right, but those very same politicians can turn right around and deny the illegals the right to vote to control their own lives and laws. That's not exploitation? Of course it is!

In Atlas Shrugged, one of the chief methods being used by the ruling class for manipulating people was to make them an offender of a law they could then arbitrarily choose to enforce. Illegal immigration fits perfectly within this mindset because the sheer number of illegals makes them difficult to deal with en masse. Their stories are also manipulated in the media to prey upon the emotions of the populace (see the so-called "dreamers") despite the fact that a large portion of the illegal population consists of gangs, violent criminals and repeat offenders. In my eyes, there is a very open and direct parallel to the book.

"Rationalizing filled contradictions and package deals mixing Marxism with conservative slogans..."

Which are inventions of your own mind and which you are more than happy to keep to yourself. -1. I espoused nothing of the kind.

"Times have changed" is not an answer to interpreting the Constitution. Neither is rationalizing what you would prefer.

A lot of people do legitimately object to using the census for open-ended "informational purposes" contrary to Constitutional authority and more fundamental ethical violations through forced interrogation.

The census was not originally related to citizenship or voting. About half the population consisted of women who could not vote. The census was a ten year sampling of the population, including permanent residents and those expected to be replaced. The Federal government was by consent of the people, consisting of all residents, not just voters, represented by the House of Representatives for the people in different geographical regions.

Excluding a temporary invading army from the census would have been a reasonable interpretation (aside from the impracticality of getting enemy soldiers to answer polls or fill out forms). Excluding non-citizen residents, even those here for a short term but being replaced in a statistical trend over a ten year cycle, would be more difficult to justify under the apparent intent of the census.

As much as it is reasonable to want to know how many non-citizens are here, let alone illegals, who aren't supposed to be voting and collecting tax-subsidized benefits, the original intent of the census does not appear to allow that. The left and other statists cannot argue based on that intent in the authorization because they want to use the census and all other government powers to do whatever they want in accordance with whatever their ideology demands.