Due to immigration data, the Trump administration has threatened to deny Blue States SNAP assistance

Due to those states’ refusal to give the Agriculture Department information such as beneficiaries’ names and immigration statuses, the Trump administration said on Tuesday that it will start withholding SNAP benefits from recipients in the majority of Democratic-led states beginning next week.

During a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins stated that while 21 states, including California, New York, and Minnesota, have refused to give the data that was asked in February, 29 Republican-led states have complied. According to Rollins, her agency asked for the information in order to “root out… fraud.” At the White House meeting, Rollins stated, “So starting next week, we have started and will start to stop moving federal funds into those states, until they comply and they tell us and allow us to partner with them to root out this fraud and to protect the American taxpayer.” This year, the government was sued by twenty-one states and the District of Columbia to stop the data obligation. 

In October, a federal court in San Francisco issued a preliminary injunction prohibiting the administration from denying federal SNAP assistance to states that do not provide the needed data. The Agriculture Department has until December 15 to determine whether to file an appeal of the ruling, but the court has already turned down the administration’s plea to halt the injunction in the event that it does.

Source: NPC News