Appealing SNAP Ruling, Trump Is Determined to Make Sure Poor Americans Don’t Get Food Assistance

The Trump administration will not give poor Americans food assistance without a fight.

Instead of following a federal judge’s ruling Thursday that ordered officials to release Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) funds to 42 million Americans by the next day, the Department of Justice (DOJ) asked an appeals court to immediately block the ruling on Friday.

The Trump administration has argued that due to the government shutdown, the SNAP program, which provides food assistance to those making 130% of the federal poverty line or less, functionally does not exist.

In an emergency request to the 1st Circuit Court of the United States, the DOJ called the lower court's ruling, "unprecedented" and argued that it makes "a mockery of the separation of powers.”

Furthering what has been widely interpreted as an effort to pressure Democrats to cave on their demands in the government shutdown, the appeal stated that the lapse in SNAP funding was caused by “congressional failure, and... can only be solved by congressional action.”

US District Judge John McConnell of Rhode Island, in his second ruling against the administration's efforts to choke off SNAP benefits, wrote the previous day that the administration's plan to partially fund the program was insufficient. The previous week, McConnell had ruled that the administration had to tap a $5 billion contingency fund to fund the program and make up for the shortfall by drawing from other sources.

The administration agreed to use the contingency fund but offered a plan that fell several billion dollars short of fully funding the program and would have amounted to a 61% benefit cut for the average SNAP recipient, leaving millions without benefits altogether, according to an analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

While the administration has sought to pin the blame for funding lapses on Democrats in Congress and has asserted that its hands are tied, McConnell described the administration's maneuvering as a deliberate political stunt.

"This is a problem that could have and should have been avoided," McConnell said. “The defendants failed to consider the practical consequences associated with this decision to only partially fund SNAP... It’s likely that SNAP recipients are hungry as we sit here."

He added that Trump had essentially telegraphed his plan to defy the court order over the weekend, writing on Truth Social that “SNAP payments will be given only when the government opens.”

This, along with messages on the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) website blaming Democrats for the lapse in funding, McConnell suggested, was evidence that “SNAP benefits are being withheld for political reasons.”

“Children are immediately at risk of going hungry,” McConnell said. “This should never happen in America.”

More than 1 in 8 Americans rely on the SNAP program, 39% of whom are children. As the CBPP report explained, families with children would likely be those hardest hit under Trump's partial funding proposal.

"Nearly 1.2 million SNAP households with roughly 4.9 million people—roughly 1 in 9 SNAP recipients—will receive zero benefits because their normal benefit amount is less than the planned benefit reduction," it says. "Only one-or two-person households receive a minimum benefit under SNAP rules, leaving some households with three or more members—which are primarily households with children—at risk of receiving nothing."

The USDA has also issued a warning to grocery stores telling them it is illegal for them to offer special discounts to SNAP recipients hurt by the freeze, even though the government is allowed to grant them waivers. On Thursday, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) introduced a bill that would allow grocery stores to voluntarily offer discounts to SNAP recipients whenever their benefits are affected by a government shutdown.

“Donald Trump is the most powerful person in the world,” Wyden said. “Only a monster would use that power to deny help to millions of families that don’t know where their next meal is coming from.”

As the CPBB has noted, contrary to its claims, nothing is stopping the Trump administration from transferring funds from other food assistance programs to fund SNAP fully. It has already done this twice to sustain the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), which a court ruled was legal.

"Instead of using the funding that has been readily available to feed people, this administration continues to fight to deny tens of millions from accessing the nutrition they need," said Crystal FitzSimons, president of the Food Research & Action Center. "For some unfathomable reason, the Trump administration wants to punish the 42 million people, including children, working parents, older adults, people with disabilities, and veterans, who rely on SNAP to put food on the table."

She added that "at a time when food insecurity is rising due to increasing grocery prices, the administration’s legal maneuver sends a clear and devastating message: that the well-being of America’s most vulnerable is not important."