A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to fully fund SNAP, following a week of indecision about the program’s fate during the government shutdown.
The Rhode Island judge said the administration must tap emergency funds by tomorrow, but it is still unclear when the benefits will hit the Lone Star Cards that Texas participants use to purchase food at grocery retailers.
“The defendants failed to consider the practical consequences associated with this decision to only partially fund SNAP,” U.S. District Judge John J. McConnell Jr. said in a ruling from the bench after a brief hearing, according to the Associated Press. “They knew that there would be a long delay in paying partial SNAP payments and failed to consider the harms individuals who rely on those benefits would suffer.”
Benefits for SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program also called food stamps, will be released on a staggered basis, starting with those who were first to miss their payments and continuing until the Texas Health and Human Services Commission catches up to its normal schedule, said Wesley Story of Feeding Texas, the state association of food banks.
HHSC has given no timeline on when these payments will reach the 3.5 million Texans enrolled in SNAP, 1.7 million of whom are children. Feeding Texas said that once USDA posts information for issuing benefits, the money will take at least three days to become available.
By Thursday, about 460,000 Texas households were supposed to get SNAP benefits at the start of the month, but had not received them, according to a spokesperson for Propel, an app that helps SNAP enrollees manage their benefits. HHSC has not responded to questions about how many Texans have not received benefits.
The recent order is the latest in a back-and-forth about whether SNAP will be funded during the shutdown and by how much.
Meanwhile, food assistance has been delayed for more than 8.7 million households across the country as of Thursday, after benefits paused on the first of the month.
Feeding Texas CEO Celia Cole called the situation “deeply concerning” in a Tuesday statement.
“SNAP is a lifeline for millions of Texans. Without it, families are forced to make impossible choices between putting food on the table, paying rent, or affording medicine. These decisions have lasting consequences for their health and our food economy,” the statement said.
Two federal judges ruled late last week that the Trump administration must tap existing funds to keep the food assistance program running during the government shutdown, according to reporting from the Associated Press.
The rulings came as Gov. Greg Abbott faced mounting pressure to authorize emergency funding for Texas SNAP recipients. Abbott said U.S. Senate Democrats should pass legislation to end the government shutdown. Democrats have voted against the new budget 14 times over Republicans’ refusal to negotiate extending Affordable Care Act subsidies, which are set to expire at year’s end. The federal shutdown is the longest in the country’s history.
The Trump administration said Monday it would use $4.65 billion from an emergency account to cover about half the month’s payments. In response, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said it would issue benefits up to 50% of what enrollees typically get each month, then bumped that to 65% due to a calculation error.
The federal waffling sets the stage for a similar situation in December if the shutdown isn’t resolved by then.
“Ongoing lawsuits are not a swift solution to this crisis. If contingency funds are released, they represent only partial relief — and the administration has indicated it could take weeks to calculate and distribute them,” Cole said in a statement last week.
Every day that the money is delayed affects around 126,000 Texans, Cole previously told The Texas Tribune.
The USDA had announced that it would halt the program, which serves more than 42 million Americans, in November due to insufficient funding during the shutdown.
Texas HHSC spokesperson James Rivera said Wednesday the agency is awaiting guidance from the Agriculture Department’s food and nutrition service, which oversees SNAP, and Texans can find more information on its website and FAQs.
The ruling came in response to a challenge from state attorneys general or governors in 25 states plus the District of Columbia, who said the administration was legally obliged to keep SNAP running.
A prior USDA plan for a government shutdown says SNAP should keep running during a pause in appropriations.
“Congressional intent is evident that SNAP’s operations should continue since the program has been provided with multi-year contingency funds,” said the plan, which was subsequently removed from the USDA website.
That emergency fund totals $5.3 billion, but SNAP needs $8.2 billion for full funding in November. The Trump administration has doubled down that it cannot use this money for SNAP.
In their suit, the Democratic states argued that the administration must tap this fund, and that it also has access to a separate pool with around $23 billion. Both judges ordered the Trump administration to fund SNAP at least partially, and left it to decide whether to use additional resources to pay for full November benefits.
“Following public outcry and intervention from the courts, Trump is being forced to do a little to stop the hunger crisis he tried to create,” said Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, in a statement Monday. “He used his full authority to help farmers, but refuses to do the same for families. They only receive half a loaf of help.”