President Donald Trump’s administration returned to the Supreme Court on Monday in a bid to keep a freeze on full payments for the SNAP federal food assistance program in place during the government shutdown, even as some families struggle to put food on the table.
The request is the latest in a series of legal actions over how the program operates. Help 42 million Americans Grocery purchases should proceed during the historic U.S. government shutdown. A lower court had ruled that the government must continue paying the full amount, and the Supreme Court asked the government to take action late Sunday after the Court of Appeals again ruled against the government.
The High Court is expected to issue a ruling on Tuesday.
Brandi Johnson, 48, of St. Louis, said she is having a hard time spending the $20 left in her SNAP account. Johnson said she has been skipping meals for the past two weeks to make sure her three teenage children have something to eat. She also helps care for her young granddaughter, who has food allergies, and her 80-year-old mother.
She said the food pantry has provided little help in recent days. Clients are often required to live in a particular zip code or to be dedicated to helping seniors first.
“I literally think about this 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” Johnson said. “Because you have to think about how you’re going to eat it.”
Millions of people are receiving aid while others wait
Attorney General D. John Sauer confirmed that the federal government still wants to put the lower court’s order on hold, but in his letter to the justices also cited reports that Congress could soon end the shutdown with a compromise that would fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
Once you pass, Government financial aid package It would replenish SNAP funding and ensure that states that spent their own funds to keep SNAP operational during the shutdown are reimbursed.
The Trump administration initially said SNAP Benefit will no longer be available Due to closure in November. After some states and nonprofits filed suit, judges in Massachusetts and Rhode Island ruled that the administration cannot skip November benefits altogether.
Later, the administration announced that it would use the emergency reserve fund to provide 65% of the maximum monthly benefit. On Thursday, Rhode Island-based U.S. District Judge John J. McConnell said that was not enough. ordered full funding Receive your SNAP benefits by Friday.
Some states acted quickly to direct EBT vendors to provide full monthly benefits to SNAP recipients. Millions of people in at least a dozen states, all with Democratic governors, received full payment for their grocery purchases, but Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson on Friday night put McConnell’s order on hold pending further consideration by the appeals court.
Delays cause problems for some beneficiaries
millions more States have not yet received November’s SNAP payments as they await guidance from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers SNAP. Several states, including Texas, are making partial payments, and officials said Monday that money was being sent to some beneficiaries’ cards.
Diane Yentel, president and CEO of the National Council of Nonprofits, one of the plaintiffs in the case, said in a statement Monday that “continued delays will deepen the suffering of children, seniors, and working families, and place an even heavier burden on nonprofits.” “If basic decency and humanity do not force the government to provide food security for all Americans, then multiple federal judges should rule the government’s actions illegal.”
The Trump administration argued that the judicial order requiring full benefits violates the spending authority of the legislative and executive branches and violates the Constitution.
Wisconsin, which was the first state to provide full benefits following Mr. McConnell’s order, has had its federal reimbursements frozen. The state’s SNAP accounts could be depleted as soon as Monday, according to court filings, leaving no money to repay stores that sell food to SNAP recipients.
New York Attorney General Letitia James on Monday called for an end to this, saying some cardholders are being turned away by stores because they fear they won’t get a refund.
New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin said President Trump is fighting “for the right to starve Americans.”
“This is the most heinous thing I’ve ever seen in public,” he said.
Latest ruling puts payments on hold, at least for now.
Country to manage SNAP payment Due to the ongoing legal battle, there remains uncertainty as to whether full monthly benefits can and should be paid.
Over the weekend, the Trump administration required states to: “Revert” all benefits paid within a one-day grace period before a Supreme Court judge after a federal judge orders full funding; I have suspended that order.
A federal appeals court in Boston stayed the full benefits order late Sunday, but the Supreme Court’s order ensures the government won’t have to pay benefits for at least 48 hours.
“The record here shows that people who rely on SNAP have not received benefits for a week since November, while the government has stood by for nearly a month without making partial payments,” wrote Judge Julie Rickleman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.
U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, who is overseeing a lawsuit filed in Boston by Democratic state officials, on Monday suspended the Department of Agriculture’s request from Saturday that the state “immediately rescind steps taken to provide full SNAP benefits.”
Talwani scheduled a hearing on the request later Monday.
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Associated Press writers Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin; Margery Beck of Omaha, Nebraska; John Hanna of Topeka, Kansas; Nicholas Riccardi of Denver; Stephen Groves and Lindsay Whitehurst in Washington, DC, contributed to this report.
