The will-they-or-won’t-they whiplash over funding food stamp benefits got a new twist Thursday as a federal judge in Rhode Island ordered the Trump administration to fully fund SNAP for November.
The ruling from U.S. District Judge John J. McConnell Jr. was prompted by complaints that the plan to partially fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — which helps 42 million Americans including 86,000 Utah households — could create a long delay in receiving any aid and would harm families.
“The defendants failed to consider the practical consequences associated with this decision to only partially fund SNAP,” the Associated Press quoted McConnell. “They knew that there would be a long delay in paying partial SNAP payments and failed to consider the harms individuals who rely on those benefits would suffer.”
According to ABC News, McConnell gave the government until Friday to fully fund SNAP for November.
In response to the government shutdown, now the longest in U.S. history, the Trump administration announced that there would be no SNAP benefits delivered in November. Typically, SNAP is held harmless in a shutdown.
After two federal judges ordered the government to provide food stamps, the undersecretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture said in a court filing that partial payments would be made — but it could be weeks or months, as Deseret News earlier reported.
The next day, President Donald Trump posted that no payments would be made until Democrats end the shutdown, which the White House later in the day walked back.
“The administration is fully complying with the court order. I just spoke to the president about it. The recipients of these SNAP benefits need to understand it’s going to take time to receive this money because the Democrats have forced the administration into a very untenable position,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt clarified in remarks to reporters Tuesday, as Politico reported.
Initially, the government said it could pay half of benefits from a SNAP emergency fund, but it later said the money would stretch to 65%.
Meanwhile, local governments and donors have been reaching out with money and food products to help local food banks around the country, but they all agree there’s only so much that they can do.
The new order was delivered orally Thursday. According to Politico, “McConnell also noted that Trump’s post on social media that benefits wouldn’t be funded until the government reopened ‘stated his intent to defy the court order.’”