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Tuesday night, the lawyers representing the Trump administration requested an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court so that it could allow the Trump administration to impound billions of dollars in foreign aid spending. Congress has already authorized the money and sent the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) funding back to the Supreme Court for the second time in less than six months.

A nearly $12 billion aid package is on the line. The money is set aside for USAID and must be disbursed before the end of the fiscal year on September 30. The president signed an executive order to block nearly all foreign aid spending the day after he returned to the White House in January, which the administration claims is an effort to cut “waste, fraud, and abuse” spending on overseas development programs.

This order was contested in federal court, where, in February, a U.S. District Judge, Amir Ali, in Washington, DC, ordered a partial injunction on the White House from blocking these funds from being disbursed. He gave a reason for the Trump administration being required to continue spending on projects that Congress has already approved. The judge gave an injunction that forced the Trump administration to continue the payments on billions of dollars in USAID grants.

The Trump administration again protested and took the case back to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which then re-heard the case earlier this month and ruled 2-1 to overturn the lower court’s injunction. Judge Karen L. Henderson, an appointee of George H.W. Bush, ruled in favor of the Trump administration by vacating the injunction. The judge’s majority opinion found that the plaintiffs, foreign aid groups suing the administration in an effort to have the grants returned, did not have the legal authority to sue the president in this case.

Karen L. Henderson wrote that the foreign aid groups had not created a cause of action under what’s known as the doctrine of impoundment. The doctrine says the president can rescind money once Congress approves it, but must give the reasoning. The plaintiffs, as the court put it, are not a part of this doctrine, and it said that the plaintiffs were “lacking Article III standing.”

While this is a major victory for the Trump administration, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has yet to issue a mandate, which is an official order by the court enacting the judgment. The court has left it up to the request of the parties. This has left the lower court’s order and the payment schedule Judge Ali issued still technically in place.

Trump administration officials are racing against time to avoid being forced to pay out the full $12 billion before the end of the fiscal year. While not completely official, since the court did not order a mandate for the injunction to vacate to begin taking effect, the administration is counting on the Supreme Court to immediately step in with the emergency request the Trump lawyers just made.

Trump’s Argument to the Supreme Court

Solicitor General D. John Sauer, who filed the request with the Supreme Court on Tuesday, said that the government will be obligated to “rapidly obligate $12 billion in foreign-aid funds before a statutory deadline” of September 30. His argument also included that the matter will be left up to the political branches and not the federal courts.

Sauer wrote in the filing, “Congress did not upset the delicate interbranch balance by allowing for unlimited, unconstrained private suits. Plaintiffs can sue under the APA, but they cannot invoke the Spending Clause or the Impoundment Control Act in the same way.” Sauer further wrote in the request, “any lingering dispute about the proper disposition of funds that the President seeks to rescind shortly before they expire should be left to the political branches, not effectively prejudged by the district court.”

The Plaintiffs’ Argument Against Trump

In response to the Trump administration’s argument, the plaintiffs of the case, a group of foreign aid organizations whose programs are funded by USAID, said the opposite. The plaintiffs of the case are arguing that the president does not have the right to indefinitely block the funds which Congress has already set aside and authorized for disbursement. The plaintiffs are using the Impoundment Control Act (ICA), a law from the 1970s that was created to stop executive overreach in federal spending, and the Administrative Procedure Act as the two main bases for the lawsuit.

One of the plaintiffs, Daniel R. Offutt, a humanitarian aid worker for Mercy Corps who works on the ground to fight humanitarian needs in more than 70 countries, put it best with the quote, “Families and communities who have already received promises of our support cannot afford for these cuts to go through. U.S. aid dollars are already lean, but these cuts will make it impossible for us to open life-saving programs. Mercy Corps must be able to keep our promise.”