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About 42 million Americans and their families can Will immediately lose access to federal food assistance If Donald Trump’s administration doesn’t use billions of dollars in emergency funding to keep critical programs running during the government shutdown.
Democratic leaders from 25 states are now suing the administration keep those dollars flowingArguing that the Department of Agriculture is legally required to continue providing Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits as long as there are funds to support it.
“Millions of Americans are going to go hungry because the federal government decided to withhold the food assistance it is legally obligated to provide,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is among 25 attorneys general suing the Trump administration to keep SNAP running.
“SNAP is one of our country’s most effective tools to fight hunger, and USDA has the money to keep it running,” she said. “This administration has no excuse for abandoning families who depend on SNAP, or food stamps, as a lifeline. The federal government must do its part to protect families.”
A notice on the USDA website this week claims “the well has run dry” for SNAP benefits and says there will be “no benefits” on Nov. 1.
But the government was preparing an emergency plan, as outlined in a September memo, which said the agency would take advantage of a multiyear contingency to continue supporting SNAP if funding were to stop.
That document was recently removed from the USDA website, and a follow-up memo now claims that USDA’s contingency fund “was not legally available to cover regular benefits.”
The plaintiffs claim the federal government is illegally blocking those funds, which “should have comprised at least a significant portion of November SNAP benefits, based on the $6 billion in SNAP-specific contingency funds.”
The USDA claims those funds were earmarked for natural disasters and other emergencies, not in the event of a standoff in Congress over a funding bill to reopen the government.
The USDA, echoing recent partisan attacks on government websites, is clearly blaming congressional Democrats for the shutdown and suspension of SNAP funding.
“Finally, the well has run dry,” according to the latest notice on its website. “At this time, there will be no benefits issued on November 1. We are reaching an inflection point for Senate Democrats.”
If SNAP benefits are suspended this weekend, it would be the first time in the program’s 60-year history that the federal government has let it lapse.
According to Chris Swartz, senior ethics counsel at the legal advocacy group Democracy Defenders Fund, withholding emergency funds is “illegal, unethical, and cruel.”
USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins “has both the authority and the legal obligation to act,” said Virginia Cantor, the group’s chief counsel and director of ethics and anti-corruption.
“Congress created the SNAP Contingency Fund to prevent starvation during funding shortfalls,” he said. “Not using it is a deliberate decision to deny food to the 42 million Americans who are legally entitled to those benefits, including veterans, children and veterans.”
SNAP funds, distributed monthly by the federal government to states, support the nation’s largest anti-hunger program, serving millions of families, with the majority of recipients being children and seniors.
Recipients receive about $188 per person per month, or about $6 per day, administered on a prepaid card that can be used for grocery store staples.
According to anti-hunger advocates, the program provides approximately nine meals for every meal provided by the food pantry.
More than 3 million people in New York alone rely on SNAP, as do thousands of people in states with the highest poverty levels in the country.
According to the lawsuit, “millions of Americans” are on the brink of crisis. “Every day that the suspension of SNAP benefits is not ordered is another day that critical food assistance does not reach families who need it.”
According to the lawsuit, suspending the funds “risks overburdening state agencies that administer SNAP and state and local programs that will need to compensate for the shortfall of SNAP benefits.”
State governments and food banks are now warning SNAP recipients that those funds could soon run out.
The hearing of the case has been fixed for October 30.