As the longest government shutdown in American history continues, tens of millions of people continue to face uncertainty over federal benefits that have been disrupted by the political crisis. In the latest development, a federal judge has ruled that the Trump administration must fulfill obligations to provide food assistance in November.
Federal judge issues new ruling to fully fund SNAP
U.S. District Judge John McConnell ruled Thursday that the federal government must make full payments in November for the nearly 42 million Americans who receive aid through the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program. The Rhode Island-based judge’s ruling follows earlier rulings made by McConnell and another federal judge that ordered the Trump administration to use billions of dollars of contingency funds to partially cover SNAP payments for November as the program’s ordinary funding remains unapproved due to the ongoing government shutdown. Now, McConnell is ordering the government to fully fund SNAP, giving the administration until Friday to distribute the money to state governments, which administer SNAP for their residents.
“People have gone without for too long,” McConnell said in his ruling, adding that “not making payments to them for even another day is simply unacceptable.” The judge also called out the Trump administration for “arbitrarily and capriciously” deciding not to fully fund SNAP for November. Now, McConnell is saying that the Trump administration must not only use the contingency funds covered in his previous order but must also draw from a separate set of funds held by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for its Child Nutrition Program in order to fully fund SNAP. In his ruling, McConnell warned that not fully funding SNAP would cause “irreparable harm” to the program’s recipients.
SNAP fight continues as administration resists orders to fund program
The fight over SNAP benefits comes after the Trump administration decided not to use the contingency funds to pay for SNAP while the government shutdown endures. The administration argued that it was not legally allowed to tap into the contingency money in this circumstance, leading a group of Democratic-controlled states to sue to release the funds. Even though several court rulings have ordered the federal government to fund SNAP this month, the Trump administration continues to resist. The administration indicated that the Justice Department would file an appeal to Thursday’s ruling, and on Friday it filed an emergency motion for a stay to be issued against McConnell’s ruling.
Speaking to reporters at the White House, Vice President JD Vance said, “It’s an absurd ruling because you have a federal judge effectively telling us what we have to do in the middle of a Democrat government shutdown.” The vice president also attempted to deflect responsibility for the SNAP funding crisis. “What we’d like to do is for the Democrats to open up the government of course, then we can fund SNAP and we can also do a lot of other good things for the American people,” Vance argued, continuing the administration’s strategy of attempting to blame Democrats for the government shutdown. “But in the midst of a shutdown, we can’t have a federal court telling the president how he has to triage the situation,” the vice president said.
With the current government shutdown now the longest in United States history, tens of millions of people across the country have been feeling the hardship of having salaries or benefits cut off. With no end yet to the deadlock between the two parties, and the Trump administration resisting efforts to keep important services like SNAP operational during the shutdown, vulnerable populations across the United States are bearing the brunt of this latest political fight.