Trump administration announced Tuesday that it will begin withholding SNAP. benefits from recipients in most Democratic-led states starting next week after those states refused to provide the Agriculture Department with data including the names of recipients and immigration statuses.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said during a Cabinet meeting Tuesday that 29 Republican-led states have complied, but 21 states including California, New York and Minnesota refused to provide data requested in February. Rollins said her department requested the information to “root out … fraud.”
“So, starting next week, we have begun and will begin to stop the movement of federal funds to these states until they meet their obligations and tell us and allow us to work with them to root out this fraud and protect American taxpayers,” Rollins said at the White House meeting.
About 42 million people in the United States receive food assistance benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
Reacting to Rollins' remarks Tuesday, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said in X: “The real question is: Why is the Trump administration so obsessed with people going hungry?”
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison called Rollins' remarks an attempt to “punish… political rivals.”
“It is ridiculous that the Trump administration is once again trying to withhold SNAP funding over data sharing after the court has clearly told them not to,” Ellison said in a statement.
Twenty-one states and the District of Columbia sued the administration to block the data requirement this year. The attorneys general argued that the requirement was part of the Trump administration's campaign to “hoard Americans' sensitive personal data and misuse that data for unauthorized purposes,” citing agreements between the IRS and the Department of Health and Human Services. exchange data with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Federal Judge in San Francisco issued a preliminary injunction in October prohibited the administration from withholding federal SNAP funding from states that refuse to provide requested data. The Agriculture Department can appeal the decision and has until Dec. 15 to decide whether to do so, but a judge has already rejected the administration's request to stay the injunction if it decides to appeal.
SNAP funding dried up last month during the longest government shutdown in history, forcing many recipients will be left without food. The closure ended on November 12, essentially ending the lawsuit that reached the Supreme Court regarding whether the administration's attempt to withhold funding was legal.
Shannon Pettypiece contributed.
