The Supreme Court on Friday rejected a request from the Trump administration to restart an asylum ban that would have prevented migrants who enter the country illegally from applying for asylum.

U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar placed a temporary hold on the Trump administration's new rules to cut off asylum for migrants who enter the country illegally on Nov. 19. The Justice Department took the unusual step of jumping straight to the Supreme Court to reinstate the ban, but the justice turned down that request by a 5-4 vote.

That means the asylum ban will remain on hold as the case proceeds through lower courts.

Both of Trump's Supreme Court nominees — Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh — voted to allow the asylum ban to be revived, joining Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. But Chief Justice John Roberts joined the remaining members of the court in turning down the Trump administration request.

"The Supreme Court's decision to leave the asylum ban blocked will save lives and keep vulnerable families and children from persecution," said attorney Lee Gelernt of ACLU, one of several groups who filed the lawsuit challenging Trump's policy. "We are pleased the court refused to allow the administration to short-circuit the usual appellate process."

“We are disappointed that the Court did not stay one of the unprecedented 25 nationwide injunctions against the Trump administration, but the Court has not yet fully considered the merits of this case,” said Justice Department spokesman Steven Stafford. “We will continue to defend the Executive Branch’s lawful authority over the discretionary benefit of asylum.”

The ruling follows a new policy issued by the Trump administration on Thursday that will require all asylum-seekers who cross the southwest border to return to Mexico while their application is being decided in the U.S. Immigration advocates have vowed to fight that policy in federal court, which would add another level of court battles to the administration’s attempts to limit asylum in the U.S.

Friday's ruling from the Supreme Court dealt only with the administration's ban on migrants who cross the border illegally.

The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act states that any foreigner who arrives in the USA, "whether or not at a designated port of arrival," may apply for asylum. On Nov. 9, Trump tried to overrule that law, signing a presidential proclamation ending the ability of immigrants to request asylum if they enter the country illegally.

Tigar conceded that presidents have broad authority over immigration, but wrote that U.S. law was very clear and that Trump "may not rewrite the immigration laws" as he sees fit.

The Justice Department appealed that decision to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, but took the unusual step of trying to leap-frog the 9th Circuit and have the Supreme Court decide whether the asylum ban could be re-activated while the case proceeds through the courts.

Tigar's ruling also led to a rare war of words between a president and the Supreme Court. In a series of tweets, Trump bashed the 9th Circuit — even though it has not yet ruled on the asylum ban — as politically biased. That prompted Supreme Court Justice John Roberts to say there are no "Obama judges" or "Trump judges" but "an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them."

Attorneys who filed the lawsuit challenging Trump's asylum ban argued that lifting the temporary injunction was not warranted because implementing the ban would cause immediate harm to asylum-seekers before the legality of the ban is even decided.

"The Administration's quarrel here is really with the longstanding and fundamental policy decision Congress made four decades ago and consistently and explicitly reaffirmed over the years," the lawyers wrote in a brief to the Supreme Court on Monday.

Solicitor General Noel Francisco responded on Tuesday, arguing that the status quo is untenable since it will guarantee "the harms associated with unlawful mass migration."

Francisco wrote that asylum ban implemented by Trump needs to go into effect because it "is part of a coordinated response by the President, the Attorney General, and the Secretary of Homeland Security ... to a crisis at the southern border, undertaken in the midst of sensitive and ongoing diplomatic negotiations with Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador."

The administration has struggled to deal with an influx of family units and unaccompanied minors along the southern border, many claiming asylum.

That led to the controversial "zero-tolerance" policy that resulted in thousands of separated families and was blocked by another federal judge. The influx also led Trump to deploy nearly 6,000 active-duty military troops to respond to the migrant caravan that is currently camped out in Tijuana. And it led then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to issue new rules banning asylum for victims of domestic abuse and gang violence, which was blocked by a federal judge on Wednesday.