Four men on federal death row asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday to keep in place a preliminary injunction that blocks the Justice Department from carrying out their executions .

The filing said that allowing the federal government to proceed with putting the men to death would allow the Justice Department to implement a new execution protocol that a lower court deemed last month to be without authority and unlawfully issued.

The mens response came days after the Justice Department filed an application asking the Supreme Court to allow it to resume the federal executions by getting rid of the injunction handed down by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, escalating the Trump administrations push to resume the federal death penalty. The Dec. 2 filing was signed by Solicitor General Noel Francisco.

The Justice Department did not respond to HuffPosts request for comment.

Attorney General William Barr directed the Federal Bureau of Prisons in July to resume the federal death penalty so that he could schedule executions in December and January for five men: Daniel Lewis Lee , Wesley Purkey , Alfred Bourgeois , Dustin Lee Honken and Lezmond Mitchell. Mitchell is not part of the prisoners lawsuit against the Justice Department, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled in October to stay his execution pending resolution of his appeal.