Judge orders Trump to pay full SNAP benefits in November

(CN) — A federal judge on Thursday ordered the Trump administration to fully fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program amid the government shutdown, finding that the government’s plan to pay out only half of the benefits is insufficient.

U.S. District Judge John J. McConnell, a Barack Obama appointee, ruled from the bench following a brief hearing, in which a group of Rhode Island churches and nonprofits argued for full SNAP funding.

McConnell sided with the suing organizations, finding that the government “failed to consider the practical consequences associated with this decision to only partially fund SNAP.”

“They knew that there would be a long delay in paying partial SNAP payments and failed to consider the harms individuals who rely on those benefits would suffer,” McConnell said, according to reporting from The Associated Press.

The judge gave the government until Friday to make the payments in full, though it’s unlikely all 42 million Americans who rely on SNAP for food security will actually see the money that quickly.

The Trump administration quickly filed a notice of appeal on Thursday, bringing McConnell’s ruling to the First Circuit, which has been unfriendly to the administration’s program and spending cuts as of late.

McConnell previously ordered the Trump administration to pay SNAP recipients after the government tried to freeze the program altogether for the month of November amid the shutdown — now the longest in U.S. history. The Rhode Island groups sued over the attempted freeze, demanding that the Department of Agriculture dip into a multibillion-dollar contingency fund to keep SNAP alive.

“The agency claims it cannot fund the program due to the government shutdown — even though previously appropriated funds are available, including contingency funds that Congress expressly designated for use when ‘necessary to carry out program operations,’” they argued in their lawsuit.

More than two dozen Democratic states sued over this as well, arguing that a full SNAP shutdown would be devastating for their local economies and health care systems. The judge in that case also ordered the government to look into using the contingency fund to pay SNAP recipients.

In an effort to appease both judges, the government planned to use the fund to bankroll reduced SNAP payments for the month of November. Thursday’s hearing was called after the Rhode Island groups claimed that’d be insufficient.

“The court should grant a temporary restraining order and preliminary stay on the ground that defendants’ decision not to provide full SNAP benefits — even though they have funds available to do so and even though switching to partial payments at this late date will cause devastating delay — is arbitrary and capricious,” the groups said in a motion this week.

McConnell ultimately agreed, lambasting the government from the bench on Thursday for its attempt to withhold benefits.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs called the ruling a “major victory” for all SNAP recipients.

“The court could not be more clear — the Trump-Vance administration must stop playing politics with people’s lives by delaying SNAP payments they are obligated to issue,” said Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward. “This immoral and unlawful decision by the administration has shamefully delayed SNAP payments, taking food off the table of hungry families. We shouldn’t have to force the president to care for his citizens, but we will do whatever is necessary to protect people and communities.”

Of the roughly 42 million Americans who rely on SNAP, children and seniors make up nearly 60% of all recipients and more than 1 million are veterans.

“A judge in Rhode Island just stopped the federal government from starving millions of Americans. I am relieved that people will get the food they need, but it is outrageous that it took a lawsuit to make the federal government feed its own people,” New York Attorney General Letitia James, one of the state leaders behind the other lawsuit, said in a statement following McConnell’s latest ruling.

In New York alone, nearly 3 million people statewide use the program to the tune of approximately $650 million in benefits per month, according to James’ office.

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