In a terse four words, the Supreme Court on Monday issued an order upholding prohibitions against foreigners making contributions to influence American elections.

The decision clamped shut an opening that some thought the court had created two years ago in its Citizens United decision, when it relaxed campaign-finance limits on corporations and labor unions. On Monday the Supreme Court, upholding a lower court’s decision in Bluman, et al., v. Federal Election Commission, refused to extend its reasoning in Citizens United to cover foreigners living temporarily here.

Foreign nationals, other than lawful permanent residents, are completely banned from donating to candidates or parties, or making independent expenditures in federal, state or local elections.

The Supreme Court’s order did not discuss the merits or suggest that there was any dissent among the justices.

But the court’s sentiments were flagged in the Citizens United case, which hinged in part on the question of whether one kind of donor could be restricted when another was not. Lawyers supporting the plaintiffs this time had argued, among other things, that the law regarding foreigners had crossed the line by distinguishing between lawful permanent residents and other foreigners.

In a Citizens United opinion, Justice John Paul Stevens, joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, and Sonia M. Sotomayor, had written: “Although we have not reviewed them directly, we have never cast doubt on laws that place special restrictions on campaign spending by foreign nationals.”

The plaintiffs, Benjamin Bluman and Asenath Steiman, are foreign citizens living lawfully in the United States on temporary work visas. They argued that the prohibitions on their campaign spending violated the First Amendment, which has been held to protect foreigners in some situations but not in others. For example, foreigners here may speak openly; but they may not hold elective office.

One of the plaintiffs, a Canadian citizen working for a law firm in New York, wanted to contribute to Democrats and to print flyers supporting President Obama and to distribute them in Central Park.

The other, holding dual Canadian and Israeli citizenship, favored Republicans and wanted to support the conservative Club for Growth.

The United States District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed their case in August.

“It is fundamental to the definition of our national political community that foreign citizens do not have a constitutional right to participate in, and thus may be excluded from, activities of democratic self-government,” the district court’s three-judge panel declared.

Congress had strengthened the restrictions in 2002, after finding that foreigners were using soft-money contributions to political parties to buy access to American politicians.