Two federal judges ruled nearly simultaneously on Friday that President Donald Trump’s administration must continue to fund SNAP, the nation’s biggest food aid program, using contingency funds during the government shutdown.
The rulings came a day before the U.S. Department of Agriculture planned to freeze payments to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program because it said it could no longer keep funding it due to the shutdown.
The program serves about 1 in 8 Americans and is a major piece of the nation’s social safety net. Word in October that it would be a Nov. 1 casualty of the shutdown sent states, food banks and SNAP recipients scrambling to figure out how to secure food. Some states said they would spend their own funds to keep versions of the program going.
It wasn’t immediately clear how quickly the debit cards that beneficiaries use to buy groceries could be reloaded after the ruling. That process often takes one to two weeks.
Top Democrat says Trump administration must release SNAP funds after judge’s ruling
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, the ranking member of the Senate Agriculture committee that oversees the food aid program, said the court’s decision “confirms what we have said all week: The administration is choosing not to feed Americans in need, despite knowing that it is legally required to do so.”
The district court’s decision leaves “no excuse to withhold food assistance from Americans,” she said.
If the administration decides not to issue SNAP funds, she said, “it is purely a cruel political decision, not a legal one. They should immediately act — as the court has required — to ensure food assistance continues to go to families in need.”
Judges in the SNAP payment lawsuits expect updates by Monday
A federal judge in Rhode Island ruled from the bench that the program must be funded using at least the contingency funds — and asked for an update on progress by Monday.
A Massachusetts-based judge also gave the administration until Monday to say whether it would partially pay for the benefits for November with contingency money or fund them fully with additional funds.
It wasn’t immediately clear how quickly the debit cards that beneficiaries use to buy groceries could be reloaded after the ruling.
That process often takes one to two weeks.
The rulings are likely to face appeals.
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