\n A federal judge in Rhode Island said Thursday that the Trump administration must fully cover food stamp benefits for tens of millions of Americans in November.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cPeople have gone without for too long,\u201d US District Judge John McConnell said during a hastily called hearing Thursday. \u201cNot making payments to them for even another day is simply unacceptable.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Nearly 42 million Americans<\/a> receive food stamps. Payments are made on a staggered basis over the course of a month.\n <\/p>\n \n But the US Department of Agriculture took the unprecedented step of halting benefits <\/a>for November, saying the program had run out of funding amid the government shutdown.\n <\/p>\n \n Despite the judge\u2019s ruling, however, many beneficiaries may have to wait at least a few more days to see the assistance, depending on where they live. States send food stamp enrollees\u2019 information to vendors every month so they can load funds onto recipients\u2019 benefit cards, often days or weeks before the new month begins. Those steps need to take place before benefits can restart.\n <\/p>\n \n McConnell\u2019s order comes days after the administration, in response to an earlier order from him, said it would provide only partial food stamp benefits<\/a> for November by using $4.65 billion in a contingency fund maintained by the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, the formal name for food stamps.\n <\/p>\n \n The judge said the administration had not worked fast enough to ensure money reached the program\u2019s millions of recipients and that it had acted \u201carbitrarily and capriciously\u201d when it decided earlier this week that it would not provide the full benefits this month.\n <\/p>\n \n Under McConnell\u2019s new ruling, the government must tap into billions of additional dollars held by USDA in a separate pot of money so full SNAP benefits can be paid. The judge said those payments needed to be made to states, which administer the program, by Friday.\n <\/p>\n \n The administration quickly appealed McConnell\u2019s new order, as well as his ruling from last week that required the administration to at least partially fund food stamp benefits for November, to the First Circuit Court of Appeals. The Boston-based appeals court is stacked with appointees of Democratic presidents.\n <\/p>\n \n Throughout the brief hearing, McConnell repeatedly chastised an attorney representing the Trump administration over the government\u2019s failure to ensure SNAP benefits quickly reached the millions of Americans who rely on them, stressing the on-ground-impact nearly a week after recipients began missing payments for November.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cWithout SNAP funding for the month of November, 16 million children are immediately at risk of going hungry,\u201d the judge said. \u201cThis should never happen in America. In fact, it\u2019s likely that SNAP recipients are hungry as we sit here.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n On Tuesday, a coalition of cities, non-profits, unions and small businesses that brought the legal challenge complained that the administration was not complying with McConnell\u2019s order from last week. The plaintiffs claimed that since the government admitted in court filings that reduced benefits could take weeks or months to be administered, they were violating his directive that the government work \u201cexpeditiously\u201d to ensure November payments are made.\n <\/p>\n \n The judge agreed.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cIt is clear to the court that the administration did not comply,\u201d he said. \u201cThe court was clear that the administration had to either make the full payment by this past Monday, or it must \u2018expeditiously resolve the administrative and clerical burdens it described in its papers.\u2019 \u2026 The record is clear that the administration did neither.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n The hearing was the latest high-stakes court showdown over food stamps, which the administration had attempted to defund amid the government shutdown, prompting both the lawsuit in Rhode Island and a separate one filed by Democratic governors and state attorneys general in Massachusetts.\n <\/p>\n