Judge Trevor McFadden said during a hearing in Washington, D.C., that he would wait to issue a ruling on the bishops’ request for an injunction against the State Department and instead said both parties should revise their arguments by next week, in part so that they could factor in the State Department’s sudden cancelation of its agreement.

The hearing came after the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops sued the State Department last week, claiming the department illegally stopped paying the group after President Donald Trump signed an executive order in January to suspend refugee admissions and resettlement programs.

The lawsuit is one of two the Trump administration has faced over the State Department’s move on Jan. 24 to halt resettlement services in response to Trump’s order.

The other is a class action lawsuit in Seattle that was brought by several refugees and groups including a Jewish nonprofit organization and Church World Service, which provide resettlement services similar to the Catholic bishops. Those services can include providing initial housing and basic necessities and acquainting refugees with the United States’s language and culture.

The U.S. government has for decades outsourced its refugee resettlement operations, which are governed by the 1980 Refugee Act, to faith-based nonprofits.

The judge in the Seattle case ruled this week in favor of the refugees and nonprofits, saying that terminating services to them was “an effective nullification of congressional will” and temporarily blocked portions of Trump’s executive order.

Similar to what it did with the bishop conference, the State Department had also canceled its cooperative agreements with the nonprofits involved in the Seattle case in hopes of stripping them of their ability to challenge the department.

In the Washington, D.C., case, government lawyers argued that the bishops no longer had any standing now that their agreement was terminated and that any issues with unpaid reimbursements could be handled in the Court of Federal Claims. The bishops conference has said the government owes it more than $13 million in unpaid reimbursements.

McFadden, a Trump appointee, appeared sympathetic to the bishops’ argument that the unpaid funds could fall under his purview, though he appeared skeptical of any other standing they might have.

The bishops conference has argued that the suspension, and now cancellation, of its agreement with the government could deprive services to some 6,758 refugees in its care who had been in the U.S. for less than 90 days and were still in their initial integration period. Moreover, the conference said, it would have to reduce the scale of its refugee resettlement operations, which the government has been funding for decades. The bishops enlist charities, including Catholic Charities, to carry out these operations.

FEDERAL JUDGE BLOCKS TRUMP’S REFUGEE BAN FOR NOW

The bishop conference also argued in court on Friday that “the government has not identified anyone in the government who is carrying out” resettlement services now.

The lawsuits coincide with the Trump administration’s broader efforts to cut government spending quickly and aggressively. The State Department said that as part of that effort, it was dramatically curtailing foreign aid, including by terminating 90% of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s contracts.