President Donald Trump’s administration returned to the Supreme Court on Monday in a push to keep full payments in the SNAP federal food aid program frozen while the government is shut down, even as some families struggled to put food on the table.

The request is the latest in a flurry of legal activity over how the program that helps 42 million Americans buy groceries should proceed during the historic U.S. government shutdown. Lower courts have ruled that the government must keep full payments flowing, but the Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court to keep them frozen for now.

The high court is expected to rule Tuesday.

The seesawing rulings so far have created a situation where beneficiaries in some states, including Pennsylvania, have received their full monthly allocations and those in others have seen nothing.

Brandi Johnson, 48, of St. Louis, said she’s struggling to make the $20 she has left in her SNAP account stretch. Johnson said she has been skipping meals the past two weeks to make sure her three teenage children have something to eat. She is also helping care for her infant granddaughter, who has food allergies, and her 80-year-old mother.

She said food pantries have offered little help in recent days. Many require patrons to live in a certain ZIP code or are dedicated to helping the elderly first.

“I think about it 24 hours a day, seven days a week, literally,” Johnson said. “Because you’ve got to figure out how you’re going to eat.”

Millions receive aid while others wait

The Trump administration argued that lower court orders requiring the full funding of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program wrongly affect ongoing negotiations in Congress about ending the shutdown.

Supreme Court Solicitor General D. John Sauer called the funding lapse tragic, but said judges shouldn’t be deciding how to handle it.

The Senate Monday passed a compromise funding package that would end the government shutdown and refill SNAP funds. It now goes to the House for consideration.

Trump’s administration initially said SNAP benefits would not be available in November because of the shutdown. After some states and nonprofit groups sued, judges in Massachusetts and Rhode Island ruled the administration could not skip November’s benefits entirely.

The administration then said it would use an emergency reserve fund to provide 65% of the maximum monthly benefit. On Thursday, Rhode Island-based U.S. District Judge John J. McConnell said that wasn’t good enough, and ordered full funding for SNAP benefits by Friday.

Some states acted quickly to direct their EBT vendors to disburse full monthly benefits to SNAP recipients. Millions of people in at least a dozen states — all with Democratic governors — received the full amount to buy groceries before Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson put McConnell’s order on hold Friday night, pending further deliberation by an appeals court.

Millions more people still have not received SNAP payments for November, because their states were waiting on guidance from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers SNAP. Several states have made partial payments, including Texas, where officials said money was going on cards for some beneficiaries Monday.

“Continued delays deepen suffering for children, seniors, and working families, and force nonprofits to shoulder an even heavier burden,” Diane Yentel, President and CEO, National Council of Nonprofits, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said in a statement Monday. “If basic decency and humanity don’t compel the administration to assure food security for all Americans, then multiple federal court judges finding its actions unlawful must.”