SEATTLE (TNND) — A federal judge ordered the Trump administration Monday to admit around 12,000 refugees who were supposed to enter the United States through the Refugee Admission Program before President Donald Trump quickly shuttered the program.

“This Court will not entertain the Government’s result-oriented rewriting of a judicial order that clearly says what it says,” U.S. District Judge Jamal Whitehead wrote Monday. “The Government is free, of course, to seek further clarification from the Ninth Circuit. But the Government is not free to disobey statutory and constitutional law — and the direct orders of this Court and the Ninth Circuit — while it seeks such clarification.”

Whitehead called the government's interpretation of the program "interpretive jiggery-pokery" after the administration said it should only have to process the 160 refugees identified as having had travel scheduled within two weeks of Jan. 20 - the same day Trump called for refugee admissions to stop.

The judge dismissed the government's analysis, saying it required "not just reading between the lines" of the 9th Circuit's ruling, "but hallucinating new text that simply is not there."

The program has been in place since the passage of the Refugee Act in 1980 and has helped thousands of refugees escape war, natural disasters or persecution.

Refugees differ from people who come directly to the U.S.-Mexico border to seek asylum in that they must be living outside of the U.S. to be considered for resettlement and are usually referred to the State Department by the United Nations.

Shortly after the program was suspended, major refugee groups argued in a lawsuit that the executive order infringed on the system Congress created for moving refugees into the U.S.

"Rather than learn from past mistakes, the Trump administration has repeated them and engaged in severely harmful and irrational conduct that flouts the rule of law," the lawsuit reads.

In February, Whitehead blocked enforcement of Trump's order, saying it amounted to an “effective nullification of congressional will” in setting up the nation’s refugee admissions program.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals largely put Whitehead's decision on hold in March but also said the government should continue processing those who had already been approved for travel to the U.S.

The appeals court said the government must continue processing refugees who already had “arranged and confirmable” travel plans before Jan. 20 to come to the U.S.

However, Justice Department lawyer David Kim said the government took it to mean that the only refugees who should be processed for entry to the U.S. are those who were scheduled to travel to the U.S. within two weeks of Trump's order.

The judge and lawyers for refugee resettlement organizations noted that nothing in the 9th Circuit's order suggested a two-week window. Instead, Whitehead said, the order should apply to any refugees who had been approved to come to the U.S. and had established travel plans — regardless of when that travel was scheduled for.

The administration was ordered by Whitehead to instruct agency offices and staff within the next seven days to resume processing the cases of refugees who are protected by the court order.

He also told the government to immediately take steps to facilitate admission to the U.S. for those refugees whose clearances, including medical and security authorizations, have not yet lapsed.

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Editor's note: The Associated Press contributed to this article.