The Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected the Trump administration’s request to keep billions of dollars in foreign aid approved by Congress frozen, and ruled that the Trump administration must follow an order by a federal judge in Washington, D.C. that had directed the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development to pay nearly $2 billion in foreign-aid reimbursements for completed work on behalf of the United States government.

In a 5-4 decision, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett sided with the three liberal justices regarding the payments without explanation regarding their conclusion, but the court did state that the district court judge who issued the order needs to better explain “what obligations the Government must fulfill to ensure compliance with the temporary restraining order,” while taking into account the reasonability of any related timelines.

In the brief unsigned opinion, the majority — consisting of Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson — wrote that “the District Court should clarify what obligations the Government must fulfill to ensure compliance with the temporary restraining order, with due regard for the feasibility of any compliance timelines.”

The majority noted that the administration had not challenged U.S. District Judge Amir Ali’s initial order, only the Feb. 26 deadline, which in any event passed last week; they told Ali to “clarify what obligations the government must fulfill to ensure compliance with the temporary restraining order, with due regard for the feasibility of any compliance timelines.”

Conservative Justice Samuel Alito wrote a scathing dissent, backed by Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh: “Does a single district-court judge who likely lacks jurisdiction have the unchecked power to compel the Government of the United States to pay out (and probably lose forever) 2 billion taxpayer dollars? The answer to that question should be an emphatic ‘No.’ But a majority of this Court apparently thinks otherwise. I am stunned.”

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