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Under federal law, the Census Bureau forwards preliminary population totals for each state to the secretary of commerce, who must deliver them to the president before the end of each census year. The president then forwards the totals to Congress for use in reapportionment.

The court said the president’s order excluding unauthorized immigrants violated the law “in two clear respects.” It said federal law required the production of a single set of state population totals, making two separate counts illegal. Beyond that, the judges wrote, Mr. Trump’s memorandum “violates the statute governing reapportionment because, so long as they reside in the United States, illegal aliens qualify as ‘persons’ in a ‘state’ as Congress used those words.”

It was not immediately clear how — or whether — the ruling would affect a second legal battle loosely tied to Mr. Trump’s order: a fight over the administration’s command last month to shave four weeks off the time reserved for the population count.

The White House had earlier agreed to delay the delivery of census totals to the president, legally required by Dec. 31, to April 2021 because of delays caused by the coronavirus pandemic. But the administration later reversed itself, ordering the count cut short so the original deadline could be met.

That move was widely seen as an attempt to ensure that Mr. Trump would still be able to control the census totals and noncitizen estimates sent to Congress for reapportionment, even if he lost his re-election bid.