ORLANDO, Fla. — Hundreds of Puerto Rican families displaced by Hurricane Maria will be able to stay in hotels with Federal Emergency Management Agency vouchers until July 23, a federal judge ruled Tuesday morning.

The ruling marked the sixth time the deadline for the Transitional Sheltering Assistance program has been pushed back. The aid was set to expire Saturday, before advocacy groups filed a lawsuit to block it.

Many families that had been staying in hotels have left: FEMA had 1,722 families in 30 states and Puerto Rico at hotels on Saturday. By Monday the number dropped to 420 families in 22 states, though by Tuesday it had risen again, to 952 families in 27 states.

In Florida the number of families in the program went from 585 on Saturday to 146 Monday, then back up to 336, FEMA said.

In his decision Tuesday morning U.S. District Judge Timothy Hillman, who is based in Massachusetts, said he wanted to give attorneys more time to present him with all the relevant information.

Attorneys representing FEMA will have until July 13 to file arguments against the displaced families suing them. Lawyers for the displaced Puerto Ricans will then have until July 18 to offer their response, and Hillman wrote that he expects to make his decision about whether the TSA program should continue by July 23.

Families can stay in the hotel rooms until then, he wrote.

FEMA spokesman William Booher said in a statement that checkout will now be the morning of July 24. He declined to comment on the lawsuit.

“This is not the first time FEMA has acted arbitrarily to cut off critical disaster relief to communities of color, though we hope it will be the last,” Natasha Lycia Ora Bannan, an associate counsel at LatinoJustice, the organization representing some of the plaintiffs, said in a statement.

Attorney Hector Pineiro, who is representing the displaced families, stressed that the victory was only temporary and the federal government had not had a chance to present its case.

“This is a small battle in a big fight … we have a lot of work left to do,” Pineiro said.

That sentiment was echoed by Democratic lawmakers at the Hope Community Center in Kissimmee, who said the evacuees’ struggles on the mainland were an extension of the federal government’s inaction in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria.

“It’s not only that the administration refused to extend the TSA program but it’s the reality of the inefficient deployment of federal resources to help Puerto Ricans at the darkest moments,” said U.S. Rep. Nydia Velazquez, a Democrat who represents New York’s 7th Congressional District and was the first Puerto Rican woman elected to the House of Representatives.

“When the federal government failed to show up in Puerto Rico, a lot of families were forced to leave Puerto Rico. And now the administration expects for them to go back? To go back where?” she said.

Velazquez was joined by fellow Democrats Florida Sen. Bill Nelson and U.S. Rep. Darren Soto of Kissimmee, during a round-table discussion that also featured two Puerto Rican women living temporarily at a Ramada Inn in Osceola County.

“This disaster has been underfunded since the beginning … it took federal judges to step up where the administration didn’t,” Soto said.

Meanwhile, Nelson said he is still pushing for FEMA to activate the Disaster Housing Assistance Program, which would open up additional emergency housing funds for survivors.

“That’s almost 2,000 people in Florida that were going to be ejected out of their hotels onto the streets. It’s not because they’re not getting jobs,” Nelson said. “The Trump administration could solve this in a minute, just like they did after Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, if they would activate that disaster housing program that’s already law in the books.”

Soto said that fighting for more emergency programs to be activated on the mainland might contradict the island’s Gov. Ricardo Rossello’s position, who he said wants people to ultimately return to the island.

“Most of them want to stay,” Soto said. “We find ourselves in a position where now we have to look out for folks who are now new Central Floridians. And that’s just something we’re going to have to agree to disagree on.”

Nelson, who has made several trips to the island after Hurricane Maria, said the responsibility still rests on the federal government.

“Puerto Rico knew that hurricane was coming. FEMA knew that hurricane was coming. The Trump White House knew that hurricane was coming,” Nelson said. “Puerto Rico was ignored. That is unconscionable.”

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(Staff writer Gal Tziperman Lotan contributed to this report.)