A three-judge panel of the federal district court for Maryland issued an opinion Friday ruling against the president’s attempt to exclude undocumented immigrants from the 2020 census count.

This was the third federal court opinion against the president, following decisions in New York and California. The issue involves a memorandum President Trump issued over the summer, directing the Secretary of the Department of Commerce, which is the department responsible for carrying out the decennial census, “to exclude from the apportionment base aliens who are not in a lawful immigration status.” The apportionment base is used to determine the number of representative each state has in the House of Representatives.

The Maryland court’s opinion begins by noting that from the very first census in the United States, every census “has accounted for the total persons in each state, without respect to immigration status.” The court found the president’s memorandum to be unlawful in two ways. First, it violates the federal statute requiring that the census count the whole number of persons in each state, with no regard given to immigration status. Second, the memorandum violates the law by ordering the Secretary to give two sets of numbers – total population and a second figure excluding undocumented immigrants – to the president when the law permits only the single number of the total population. This is much like the decision in the New York case, which found the memorandum violated the same statutes. The California case, in addition to finding the memorandum illegal, also found it unconstitutional, in that it violates both the apportionment and enumeration clauses of Article I, Section 2 as well as Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Following the Maryland opinion, the president filed a notice of appeal to the Supreme Court.