WASHINGTON − The Trump adminstration filed a last-minute appeal with the Supreme Court to block a court order requiring the government to provide full SNAP food aid benefits to millions of Americans by Nov. 7.

The administration made that request on Friday evening after the Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to intervene.

On Thursday, U.S. District Judge John McConnell in Rhode Island ordered the administration to make full food stamp payments to states within a day.

The administration argues there's no legal basis to direct the government "to somehow find $4 billion in the metaphorical couch cushions" because Congress hasn't passed a budget for the year.

The funding lapse is a crisis only Congress can solve, the Justice Department said in the appeal.

And unless the Supreme Court steps in, they told the justices, every beneficiary of a federal program could run into court to try to get funding, inviting a “run on the bank by way of judicial fiat.”

"The core power of Congress is that of the purse, while the Executive is tasked with allocating limited resources across competing priorities," the Justice Department said in its appeal. "But here, the court below took the current shutdown as effective license to declare a federal bankruptcy and appoint itself the trustee, charged with picking winners and losers among those seeking some part of the limited pool of remaining federal funds."

The judge said the U.S. Department of Agriculture can use a combination of contingency funds and other funds that he said were available to make the full payments during the federal government shutdown.

McConnell wrote in a court order that the administration's arguments for not using funds designated for another nutrition programs to fill in the gap in November SNAP benefits were "implausible," given the child programs are projected to have funding until at least May, and Congress can replenish the funds before then.

By contrast, failing to tap into those funds to pay the full SNAP November food aid presents "the very real and immediate risk of children being deprived of their food assistance today," McConnell wrote.

The administration did comply with an earlier instruction from McConnell to use contingency funds for the November SNAP benefits – but those funds only allowed for partial payments.

Skye Perryman, president of Democracy Forward Foundation – one of the groups suing over the funding − said the administration keeps trying “to take food out of the mouths of families, seniors, workers, and children.”

“Even as the administration attempts – again – through an appeal to the Supreme Court to deprive people of nutrition,” Perryman said, “we will continue to meet them with effective legal action and secure benefits for the American people.”

Contributing: Aysha Bagchi

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump administration asks Supreme Court to stop order requiring SNAP benefits be paid

Reporting by Maureen Groppe, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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