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Two federal judges issued back-to-back rulings on Friday in separate cases ordering the Trump administration to use contingency funds to continue paying for food stamps during the government shutdown.
A federal judge in Rhode Island on Friday afternoon blocked the Trump administration from suspending all food aid for millions of Americans, in a case brought by a group of US cities, non-profit organizations and a trade union.
At almost the same time, in a separate but similar case, a federal judge in Massachusetts ruled that the government must continue to fund the program that helps low-income households stave off food insecurity, in a case brought by the Democratic attorneys general from 22 states and the District of Columbia and three governors who sued the administration.
Without intervention, the US Department of Agriculture said it planned to suspend payments for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as Snap or food stamps, on Saturday, 1 November, putting millions of low-income households that rely on the benefits at risk of food insecurity and financial hardship.
John McConnell, a US district judge in Providence, issued a temporary restraining order in the Rhode Island case at the behest of those plaintiffs. They had argued that the US Department of Agriculture’s suspension of Snap benefits due to kick in on Saturday was unlawful.
Snap, the nation’s largest anti-hunger initiative, provides assistance to nearly 42 million – one in eight – low-income Americans each month. The USDA has said insufficient funds exist to pay full benefits, as issuing food stamps costs the public purse between $8.5bn and $9bn every month.
The Trump administration contends the agency lacks authority to pay them until Congress passes a spending bill that will ending the enduring government shutdown which began on 1 October.
The plaintiffs in the civil case being heard in Rhode Island are represented by the liberal legal advocacy group Democracy Forward. The group argued that the federal government’s decision to suspend the nutritional benefits was wrong and unlawful, as the USDA still had funds available to fulfill its obligation to fund the Snap program.
Such available funding includes $5.25bn in contingency funds that Congress has previously provided for the USDA to use when “necessary to carry out program operations”, the plaintiffs said.
Aside from the contingency funds, the plaintiffs argued that a separate fund with about $23bn in it could also be utilized to avoid what would be an unprecedented suspension of Snap benefits.
In the Massachusetts case, the US district judge Indira Talwani in Boston gave the administration until Monday to say whether it would partly pay for the benefits for November with contingency money or fund them fully with additional funds.
It wasn’t immediately clear how quickly the debit cards that beneficiaries use to buy groceries could be reloaded after the ruling. That process often takes one to two weeks.
The rulings are likely to face appeals.
In their challenge, the Democratic-led states argued that the agriculture department has the legal authority – and available funds – to at least partly maintain the program during the shutdown.
“Because of [the] USDA’s actions, Snap benefits will be delayed for the first time since the program’s inception,” the states said in their complaint. “Worse still, [the] USDA suspended Snap benefits even though, on information and belief, it has funds available to it that are sufficient to fund all, or at least a substantial portion, of November Snap benefits.”
The Trump administration has maintained that the department’s contingency fund is intended for natural disasters such as hurricanes, tornadoes and floods, not government shutdowns. The government has acknowledged that it has billions of federal dollars left, including emergency funds especially marked for Snap, but top officials have maintained they are unable to tap into those reserve funds.
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The administration warned that a court order requiring it to use emergency reserves to fund Snap would be “operationally fraught”, arguing it could take weeks to deliver benefits and might leave families with less than half their normal monthly allotment. In court filings, officials noted that such a partial payment “has never been made – and for good reason”.
The argument appears to contradict the department’s lapsed-funding plan, released in late September, which stated that Congress’s “evident” intent was for Snap operations to continue during a government shutdown and pointed to “multi-year contingency funds” that could be tapped in the event the closures dragged on. The plan has been removed from the department’s website.
The USDA’s website now carries a strikingly partisan notice, accusing Senate Democrats, incorrectly, of shutting down the government to provide healthcare to undocumented immigrants and trans Americans. “Bottom line, the well has run dry,” the notice says. “At this time, there will be no benefits issued November 01.”
The administration’s refusal to intervene underscored a broader strategy during the shutdown, now the second-longest in US history. Throughout the impasse, Trump has selectively reprogrammed federal funds to protect priorities central to his political agenda – such as paying troops and law enforcement officers, including those involved in immigration enforcement – while allowing other programs like Snap to starve.
Bracing for the loss of federal nutrition assistance, food banks and pantries, already stretched thin amid rising food prices, were bracing for a surge in demand. Officials in states such as Virginia, Maryland, Louisiana, Hawaii and Minnesota have announced plans to tap state and local funds to provide food aid and assist food banks in the interim.
The governors of New York, Delaware, Oregon and Virginia have declared the looming crisis a state of emergency, while states set aside millions to help offset the lapse of federal benefits.
“Unlike Washington Republicans, I won’t sit idly by as families struggle to put food on the table,” New York’s governor, Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, announced on Thursday.
In California, the Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, said he would deploy the California national guard under his command to support food banks and announced $80m in state support to fill the Snap gap.
Reuters and the Associated Press contributed reporting
