The Supreme Court granted the Trump administration’s Friday evening request to block a federal appeals court order requiring full Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program funding for November. This comes as some states, including New York, Kansas, Pennsylvania and Oregon, had already begun issuing SNAP benefits, according to The New York Times.
Earlier Friday, the Trump administration asked a federal appeals court for an emergency stay of a federal judge’s order to fully fund SNAP, but the court denied this. The administration had said that because of the government shutdown, it can access only enough money to issue partial payments.
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“This is a crisis, to be sure, but it is a crisis occasioned by congressional failure, and that can only be solved by congressional action,” the administration wrote in the filing in the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. “This court should allow USDA to continue with the partial payment and not compel the agency to transfer billions of dollars from another safety net program with no certainty of their replenishment.”
While the emergency appeal was ongoing, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced it would move to fully fund November SNAP benefits. USDA officials sent state agencies a letter saying they are completing the steps needed to make the funds available. They said states will soon be able to send full benefit files to EBT processors, which load the benefits onto cards for beneficiaries.
Previous lawsuit and ruling
On Thursday, a federal judge in Rhode Island ordered President Donald Trump’s administration to fully fund the nation’s food stamps program by Friday. The order came days after two court rulings mandated that officials use contingency funds for the program.
The ruling stems from a lawsuit filed by several nonprofits after the Department of Agriculture said it would suspend benefits as of Nov. 1, should the government remain closed.
Congress has failed to pass a funding bill, keeping the government shutdown in place since Oct. 1.
