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Attorneys for the Trump administration went to the Supreme Court on Tuesday night in an emergency request to allow the president to block billions in foreign aid spending that Congress had already authorized. The filing returned the legal fight over USAID funding to the high court for the second time in six months.

Nearly $12 billion in foreign aid had been set aside for USAID and is required to be spent before the government’s fiscal year ends on Sept. 30. In January, President Donald Trump wasted no time in resuming the fight, issuing an executive order on his first day back in office directing the federal government to stop almost all foreign aid payments. The president, claiming the move was part of a larger effort to root out “waste, fraud, and abuse” in foreign spending, gave federal agencies just two weeks to freeze the payments.

The order was quickly challenged in court. In February, U.S. District Judge Amir Ali in Washington, D.C., blocked the administration’s plan, ruling that the White House had to resume the outflow of money set aside for projects that Congress had already signed off on. Judge Ali ordered the Trump administration to start paying out billions of dollars in USAID grants.

The Trump administration appealed. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit heard the case earlier this month and, in a 2-1 ruling, vacated Judge Ali’s injunction. Judge Karen L. Henderson, a George H.W. Bush appointee, wrote for the majority, finding that the plaintiffs — a group of foreign aid groups seeking to restore their grant payments — did not have proper legal standing to sue the administration. Henderson wrote that the plaintiffs did not have an appropriate “cause of action” under the legal doctrine of impoundment.

While the appeals court ruling was a major victory for Trump, the court has not yet issued a formal mandate on its ruling. That means Judge Ali’s original order and the payment schedule he mandated remain in effect. The administration is now working against the clock to avoid being forced to pay out the full $12 billion before the fiscal year ends on Sept. 30.

Solicitor General Files Emergency Request

On Tuesday, U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer filed the emergency request with the Supreme Court, arguing that unless the justices intervene, the government will be forced to “rapidly obligate some $12 billion in foreign-aid funds” by the Sept. 30 deadline. The dispute, Sauer wrote, should not be adjudicated by the federal court system.

“Congress did not upset the delicate interbranch balance by allowing for unlimited, unconstrained private suits,” Sauer wrote in the filing. He added that “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.”

Plaintiffs are again taking the opposite stance. A coalition of foreign aid groups whose projects are dependent on USAID funds, the plaintiffs are arguing that the president lacks the power to unilaterally rescind money Congress already appropriated. They are primarily relying on the Impoundment Control Act (ICA), a 1970s-era law designed to rein in executive branch overreach on federal spending, as well as the Administrative Procedure Act, as the main statutory grounds for their case.

The litigation has broader implications for executive power and the president’s ability to overrule Congress on budgetary matters. If the administration wins, it will strengthen the power of the president to rescind or delay spending even after Congress has already appropriated funds. If the plaintiffs win, it will set a further limit on the president’s discretion to control the budget.

The Supreme Court has already weighed in on the issue. The justices issued a narrow 5-4 ruling earlier this year that blocked the payments. Now, with billions of dollars at stake and a fiscal deadline looming at the end of September, the justices have again been asked to intervene in the fight.

The case is part of a broader push by Trump to reconfigure U.S. spending priorities and exert greater control over how foreign assistance programs are run. At stake for the plaintiffs are entire projects overseas, which have already been funded and could be defunded if the administration wins. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court will decide whether to allow the administration to withhold billions in foreign aid from these groups.