BOSTON — A federal court decision may come as soon as Thursday afternoon, which could avoid a total cutoff of federal food assistance to 42 million Americans that is set to begin Saturday.
The Trump administration has stated that benefits from SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program formerly known as food stamps, could not continue to flow due to the federal government shutdown which began nearly a month ago. "The well has run dry," the USDA posted on its website last week.
But Democratic governors and attorneys general from some two dozen states sued the federal government to keep the payments coming, arguing that SNAP is an entitlement that cannot be cut off. Doing so, they argue, would cause irreparable damage to millions of Americans, and to states that will be left to deal with the fallout.
After an hour of arguments in Boston federal court, Judge Indira Talwani suggested she was not buying the Trump administration's argument that it is legally barred from using a USDA emergency fund to keep the SNAP benefits coming.
"Congress put money in an emergency fund, and it is hard for me to understand how this is not an emergency," Talwani said.
"It's really clear to me that what Congress was trying to do was protect the American people," she said, and lawmakers intended to ensure that in the event of something like a shutdown, "we're not going to make everyone drop dead because it's a political game someplace else."
Even if the emergency fund is tapped for SNAP benefits, administration officials say the $5.5 billion falls short of the $9 billion needed to fully cover the whole month of November. They say recalculating and arranging for partial payments would be a logistical nightmare — and could take weeks.
That means millions of Americans could still see some delay in the next benefit payment, and would receive less than usual.
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