Nearly 42 million low-income Americans will lose their food aid benefits on Saturday barring any federal intervention or funding patch.
Democratic attorneys general and governors from 25 states sued the Trump administration Tuesday over its conclusion that it cannot tap emergency funds to keep food aid flowing for millions of Americans next month.
Officials — including those from California, New York, Massachusetts and the District of Columbia — argued that USDA violated federal law by planning to suspend benefits under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the nation’s largest anti-hunger program serving nearly 42 million people. The department’s actions, they claim, will delay SNAP benefits for the first time in the program’s history.
The lawsuit, which was filed in a federal court in Massachusetts, asks the judge to overturn the administration’s earlier directives instructing states to withhold benefits and require USDA to use all available funds to keep SNAP benefits flowing in November.
“USDA’s action to suspend benefits where there are federal funds that Congress has appropriated and that are available for these benefits threatens to fundamentally undermine” trust in the program, the filing states. “It is states that operate SNAP on the ground and are forced into the position of trying to explain to needy, hungry people … why they will not be receiving the benefits they have been promised.”
POLITICO reported Monday that the state leaders were planning to file the lawsuit today.
The expected SNAP funding cliff will hit families right before the holiday season, when food banks and anti-hunger organizations typically experience higher demand. The push to fund food aid programs, like SNAP and another one serving low-income women and infants, has become a sticking point on Capitol Hill, as lawmakers struggle to find a solution amid the fifth week of the government shutdown.
The plaintiffs are disputing the Trump administration’s statements that it doesn’t have the legal authority to use the $5 billion it has in emergency funds to pay for at least part of SNAP, which requires more than $8 billion to pay for November benefits. They also argue that USDA could tap Section 32 funds, which it did to tide over the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, to fully fund SNAP next month.
Many of the attorneys general involved in the lawsuit also wrote to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins on Friday asking the department to provide a legal explanation for the SNAP delays and possible options to intervene before the program is halted.
“We are approaching an inflection point for Senate Democrats,” USDA spokesperson Alec Varsamis said in a statement Tuesday following the lawsuit’s filing. “Continue to hold out for the Far-Left wing of the party or reopen the government so mothers, babies, and the most vulnerable among us can receive timely WIC and SNAP allotments.”