{"id":24687,"date":"2025-10-31T22:58:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T22:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/24687\/"},"modified":"2025-10-31T22:58:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T22:58:08","slug":"judges-order-trump-admin-to-use-emergency-funds-to-pay-for-snap-benefits-with-cutoff-saturday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/24687\/","title":{"rendered":"Judges order Trump admin to use emergency funds to pay for SNAP benefits with cutoff Saturday"},"content":{"rendered":"

A pair of federal judges ruled Friday that the Trump administration must use emergency funding to restore at least some\u00a0SNAP food benefits<\/a>\u00a0\u2014\u00a0one day before the US Department of Agriculture had warned money for the program would run out due to the ongoing government shutdown.<\/p>\n

The judges in Boston and Providence, RI, both said that the USDA could decide whether to fund the entitlement commonly known as food stamps in full or in part for the month of November \u2014 but a full cutoff was unlawful.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The SNAP program serves approximately\u00a042 million Americans<\/a>\u00a0and costs about $8 billion per month nationally.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration\u2019s move to suspend SNAP food benefits for 42 million Americans has been ruled \u201clikely unlawful\u201d by a federal judge. AP<\/p>\n

Leaders of 25 Democratic-run states and the District of Columbia sued the USDA in Boston federal court Tuesday after the executive agency warned that the \u201cwell has run dry\u201d for SNAP benefits.<\/p>\n

Senate Democrats, led by House Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), have voted to reject the funding bill 13 times in hopes of forcing concessions from Republicans that would extend pandemic-era Affordable Care Act subsidies that are set to expire Dec. 31.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration argued that a contingency fund with about $5 billion in it set aside for emergencies could not be used even if it wanted to. The states<\/a> \u2014 along with a coalition of cities and nonprofits who brought the Rhode Island case \u2014 argued not only that the money could be used, but that it had to be used under the\u00a0Food and Nutrition Act, which requires that \u201cassistance under this program shall be furnished to all eligible households.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a contingency fund at USDA, but that contingency fund, by the way, doesn\u2019t even cover, I think half of the $9.2 billion that would be required for November SNAP,\u201d Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins told reporters on Capitol Hill alongside House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.).<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is only allowed to flow if the underlying program is funded. If Hurricane Melissa or one of the hurricanes hits, that\u2019s the contingency fund that we would use to send more money into the vulnerable communities that are harmed by a specific event, like a hurricane \u2014 but it is a contingency fund that can only flow if the underlying appropriation is approved.\u201d<\/p>\n

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins hold a press conference on the ongoing federal government shutdown at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., U.S., October 31, 2025. REUTERS<\/p>\n

However, a since-deleted Lapse in Funding Plan from the USDA made public Sept. 30 highlighted how \u201cmulti-year contingency funds\u201d would be used to deal with the shortfall in federal monies to state SNAP agencies.<\/p>\n

The administration argued in subsequent letters to the agencies that the $6 billion pot of funding wouldn\u2019t be able to be used for regular monthly benefits \u2014 and that the contingency spending was designated for emergencies.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt core, Defendants\u2019 conclusion that USDA is statutorily prohibited from funding SNAP because Congress has not enacted new appropriations for the current fiscal year is erroneous,\u201d Boston US District Judge Indira Talwani\u00a0wrote in her 15-page order.<\/p>\n

Talwani wrote in her order that the USDA not being allowed to fund SNAP due to the ongoing shutdown is \u201cerroneous.\u201d REUTERS<\/p>\n

\u201cTo the contrary, Defendants are statutorily mandated to use the previously appropriated SNAP contingency reserve when necessary and also have discretion to use other previously appropriated funds as detailed below,\u201d added the judge, who gave the USDA until Monday\u00a0to report whether it could \u201cauthorize only reduced SNAP benefits\u201d using money set aside to respond to natural disasters \u201cor to authorize full SNAP benefits\u201d using the emergency money and \u201cadditional available funds.\u201d<\/p>\n

Regardless of what the administration decided, Talwani wrote that there\u00a0shouldn\u2019t be \u201can outright suspension of the program while some funds are available.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Rhode Island, US District Judge\u00a0John J. McConnell ruled from the bench that the SNAP program<\/a> must be funded with the emergency monies and asked for a progress report from the feds by Monday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Regardless of what the administration decided, Talwani wrote that there\u00a0shouldn\u2019t be \u201can outright suspension of the program while some funds are available.\u201d Getty Images<\/p>\n

McConnell also ruled that all previous work requirement waivers must continue to be honored after the USDA erminated existing waivers that exempted work requirements for older adults, veterans and others during the shutdown.<\/p>\n

Follow The Post\u2019s live coverage of President Trump and national politics for the latest news and analysis<\/a><\/p>\n

The Trump administration is likely to appeal both rulings and it wasn\u2019t immediately clear how quickly the debit cards that beneficiaries use to buy groceries could be reloaded after the ruling, a process that often takes one to two weeks.<\/p>\n

McConnell ruled from the bench that the SNAP program must be funded with the emergency monies. US District Court RI<\/p>\n

Saturday will mark the first lapse in federal SNAP funding<\/a> for 60 years, and some governors, like Kathy Hochul of New York, had declared states of emergency to ensure food pantries were stocked.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMillions of families rely on SNAP \u2014 or food stamps \u2014 to survive,\u201d said New York Attorney General Letitia James, who joined the Boston case, in a statement Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe administration tried to use the shutdown as an excuse to withhold food assistance from vulnerable Americans, but the court has made clear that the law requires those benefits to continue,\u201d James added.<\/p>\n

A man holds a sign reading \u201cSNAP Feeds Families,\u201d as food aid benefits will be suspended starting November 1 amid the ongoing U.S. government shutdown, during \u201cA Rally for SNAP\u201d on the steps of the Massachusetts Statehouse in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S., October 28, 2025. REUTERS<\/p>\n

\u201cThe federal government cannot simply walk away from its obligation to feed the people it serves. We will keep fighting until every family in New York and across the nation can put food on the table.\u201d<\/p>\n

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To qualify for SNAP in 2025, a family of four\u2019s net income after certain expenses can\u2019t exceed the federal poverty line, which is about $31,000 per year.<\/p>\n

With Post wires<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A pair of federal judges ruled Friday that the Trump administration must use emergency funding to restore at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24688,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[153,6712,4234,9,11,10,87,58],"class_list":{"0":"post-24687","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-donald-trump","9":"tag-federal-government","10":"tag-judges","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-headlines","13":"tag-new-york-news","14":"tag-politics","15":"tag-us-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24687\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}