A federal judge on Thursday ordered the Trump administration to make full Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) payments for November despite the government shutdown.
U.S. District Judge John McConnell rejected the administration’s plan to provide partial payments without tapping additional funds, saying it failed to comply with his previous order.
“This is a problem that could have and should have been avoided,” said McConnell, an appointee of former President Obama.
The Trump administration had intended to fully cut off SNAP payments for roughly 42 million Americans starting this month because of the record-breaking government shutdown, leading to two lawsuits that assert the benefits must keep flowing.
Last week, McConnell ruled the administration, at minimum, was required to deplete a roughly $5 billion SNAP contingency fund. But it was not enough to fully fund November benefits, which are expected to cost upward of $9 billion.
The judge had told the administration it needed to tap other funds to cover the gap or expeditiously get partial payments out. The administration announced it would not tap other funds, but it warned the recalculations for partial benefits could cause weeks-long delays in some states.
“If that continued to be the case then the administration was required under this court’s order to immediately make the full payment for November SNAP benefits considering the finding of irreparable harm that would occur,” McConnell said Thursday.
The judge’s new order requires the administration to make the full November payments to states by Friday, so they can provide them to households.
Lawyers for the Justice Department rejected the notion that the administration ran afoul of the judge’s directive. They contended that tapping the additional funds put child nutrition programs at risk.
“The government reasonably interpreted the order,” Justice Department attorney Tyler Becker said at the hearing.
But the judge rejected the argument, finding the government’s plan to be arbitrary and capricious.
“Contrary to the defendants’ argument, 28 million children are not at risk of going hungry should this transfer occur,” McConnell said.
The ruling comes in a lawsuit brought by a coalition of cities and private organizations, one of two challenges to the administration’s refusal to spend the fund.
The second, filed by 25 Democratic-led states, is being weighed by a federal judge in Boston. She has sought additional information from the government about how it will use the contingency funds and signaled she intends to side with the states.
It’s been 37 days since the government shut down — the longest lapse in appropriations in the nation’s history. The Senate is set to vote Friday on a pathway forward, after the House-passed continuing resolution has failed to advance 14 times so far.
Read: Read More