By Devan Cole, Tami Luhby

(CNN) — The Trump administration is asking a federal appeals court to pause a judge’s order that requires the government to fully cover food stamp benefits for tens of millions of Americans in November.

The emergency request made Friday morning to the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit comes a day after a federal judge in Rhode Island said the US Department of Agriculture must find additional money to make the payments, rejecting the administration’s decision to only partially fund the food benefits program this month.

The Justice Department, which represents the USDA in court, told the Boston-based appeals court that US District Judge John McConnell had overstepped his authority when he issued his order Thursday afternoon.

McConnell’s decision, DOJ attorneys wrote in court papers, “has thrust the Judiciary into the ongoing shutdown negotiations and may well have the effect of extending the lapse in appropriations, exacerbating the problem that the court was misguidedly trying to mitigate.”

“This unprecedented injunction makes a mockery of the separation of powers. Courts hold neither the power to appropriate nor the power to spend,” they wrote. “There is no lawful basis for an order that directs USDA to somehow find $4 billion in the metaphorical couch cushions.”

Earlier this week, the USDA provided enough funding to states, which administer the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, to cover partial benefits for November, after McConnell ordered the agency to do so last week. That order was also appealed to the First Circuit.

But on Thursday, the judge said the administration had not worked fast enough to ensure money reached the program’s millions of recipients and that it had acted “arbitrarily and capriciously” when it decided against providing the full benefits this month.

McConnell ordered the administration to provide the additional funding by the end of Friday by tapping into unused tariff funds meant for child nutrition programs. That pot of money currently has nearly $17 billion in it, the government has said.

In its emergency request to the First Circuit, the administration asked the appeals court to intervene by 4pm ET Friday.

The coalition of cities, nonprofits, unions and small businesses that brought the legal challenge late last month urged the First Circuit to swiftly reject the administration’s emergency bid. In court papers filed Friday afternoon, their attorneys emphasized the on-the-ground impact of any potential intervention by the court, noting it’s been nearly a week since recipients began missing payments for November.

“Time is of the essence,” they wrote. “Plaintiffs and the public will be severely and irreparably harmed if defendants are granted a stay, even a brief one.”

The plaintiffs also pointed to McConnell’s conclusion that the USDA’s decision to not tap into the child nutrition funds out of fear that it would endanger food assistance for school children was undermined by recent comments by President Donald Trump that cast the issue in partisan terms.

The administration’s “stated desire to conserve funding for the child nutrition program is entirely pretextual given the numerous statements made in recent weeks by the president and his administration officials who admit to withholding full SNAP benefits for political reasons,” the judge said during a hearing Thursday.

States have been processing the partial food stamp payments on varying timelines, with several saying beneficiaries may start getting their assistance next week and others saying it could take much longer. Illinois said it will begin distributing the funds on Friday to those who were scheduled to get their benefits earlier in the month, while others will receive theirs on time.

Nearly 42 million Americans receive food stamps, with payments distributed on a staggered schedule throughout the month.

Food stamp benefits total about $8.2 billion in November, with other expenses pushing the monthly cost up to nearly $9 billion. The administration said it will use $4.65 billion from the USDA’s SNAP contingency fund for November’s benefits, with the rest of the $5.3 billion fund going for other costs needed to administer the program.

Under the USDA’s partial payment plan, those food stamp beneficiaries who receive the maximum and minimum allotments will see their assistance cut by 35% for November.

But many people could receive less than 65% of their usual benefits because of the way food stamp aid is calculated. The formula calls for subtracting 30% of a household’s monthly net income from the maximum benefit for its household size. Most households have some income and don’t receive the maximum allotment.

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