Judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit on Friday questioned the changing interpretation of a "public charge" under a Trump administration immigration policy and whether they had the authority to permanently define it.

A lawsuit brought by Georgetown Law's Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection, on behalf of the group Casa de Maryland and several immigrants, challenged the administration's rule issued last year that makes it more difficult for noncitizen immigrants who receive public benefits to become permanent legal citizens. The challengers argue that impacted immigrants are withdrawing from benefits they need, such as food stamps, in order to meet the requirements.

On Friday, Justice Department lawyer Gerry Sinzdak urged the judges to reverse a preliminary injunction placed against the policy by U.S. District Judge Paul Grimm of Maryland. The Fourth Circuit previously stayed that ruling while the case went up on appeal.

Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson took the lead in pressing attorneys from both parties about the definition of "public charge," which the administration changed to mean an immigrant who receives benefits for more than 12 months during a three-year period.

Wilkinson asked, if a new administration were to come into power in January 2021, whether those officials would also be allowed to change the definition of public charge. Sinzdak said they would.

He later posed similar questions to ICAP attorney Jonathan Backer, who said the definition could be changed again, but had to fit certain requirements.

"This might be a case in which you both are putting forward a permissible definition of public charge," Wilkinson said. "It's not an either/or situation, it's a situation where you're lined up in this as adversaries before us today and yet your views might both be right."

However, the judges seemed wary of wading too far into setting immigration policy. Wilkinson said he didn't want to be in a position where the courts are setting terms for policies that are left to the executive and legislative branches.

"I kind of look at it all as an accordion, which goes in and out. The policy should be like that accordion—sometimes permissive, sometimes restrictive, depending upon the needs of the country, the circumstances on the ground, the results of different elections," Wilkinson said of immigration policy. "But if we try to freeze the definition of this and try to simply fix it and set it in some sort of concrete where Congress has not done so, don't we just pardon and rigidify a policy which has to be somewhat flexible simply because the needs of the country change?"

Judge Paul Niemeyer later pressed U.S. House lawyer Adam Grogg, who argued as an amicus in the case, about why lawmakers didn't change the law to more firmly define the term in their favor rather than make the argument in court.

"It's curious to me that the House of Representatives would come to an Article III court and ask the court to construe a statute in the way the House intended, when the House can simply say what is intended," Niemeyer said. "And I find the whole thing a little out of balance to our functions."

Wilkinson and Niemeyer were both appointed to the bench by Republican presidents. Judge Robert King, who also heard Friday's arguments, was tapped by Democrat Bill Clinton.

The public charge litigation has played out in several appellate courts. A group of Democratic states, with New York Attorney General Letitia James pushing its cause, recently asked the U.S. Supreme Court to block the rule during the COVID-19 pandemic. The justices denied the request, but said the petition could be refiled with a lower court.