Attorneys General Sue Trump for Using Shutdown to Disrupt Food Aid for Millions

The Trump administration is facing a flurry of legal challenges to policies that could leave 42 million low-income people without food assistance as soon as November 1 while fast-tracking funding cuts and work requirements targeting veterans, unhoused people, and other vulnerable groups that rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (also known as SNAP or food stamps). Researchers estimate that millions of people will go hungry or be pushed out of the program altogether.

SNAP provides low-income and disabled people an average of $187 per month for groceries, a lifeline that millions of families depend on as inflation continues to rise and the affordability crisis intensifies. Funding for the program lapsed earlier this month because Congress remains at an impasse along party lines over a short-term spending bill. The deadlock has forced much of the federal government to shut down.

Three Democratic state governors and the attorneys general of 23 states filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration on Tuesday for refusing to deploy emergency funds and keep food assistance flowing as lawmakers in Congress negotiate an end to the shutdown.

“Trump is picking and choosing what gets funded and what doesn’t during the shutdown,” said Washington Attorney General Nick Brown in a statement on Tuesday.

Critics say Donald Trump is exploiting the shutdown to unilaterally slash the safety net and cause unnecessary pain, leaving it up to Congress and the courts to ensure millions do not go hungry. Whether low-income families lose food assistance ahead of the holiday season could be decided in the coming days by Congress or federal courts. Multiple states are already responding to the SNAP funding cliff by directing millions of dollars of emergency funds to food banks.

On October 10, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) sent letters informing state agencies that there would be insufficient funds for SNAP in November if the federal shutdown continues. With Congress still at an impasse, the USDA announced on Monday that it would not use emergency funds to cover the funding gap for food assistance as it has during previous shutdowns. Trump-appointed Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins has attempted to cast blame for the food crisis on the Democratic minority in Congress, which is demanding that the GOP majority negotiate over deeply harmful health care cuts in exchange for votes on a short-term spending bill.

The USDA has access to billions of dollars in SNAP contingency funds set aside for the very purpose of maintaining uninterrupted food assistance in the event of a government shutdown, according to the lawsuit filed by Brown and other attorneys general. Less than a month ago, the agency’s stated policy for a funding lapse was to make contingency funds “available to fund participant benefits in the event that a lapse occurs in the middle of the fiscal year.” Under Trump’s leadership, the agency has used emergency funds to keep other programs running during the shutdown, including permit processing for logging companies and other extractive industries, but it has refused to fund the crucial food assistance offered through SNAP.

“Apparently keeping food on the table for more than 40 million Americans isn’t a priority for the president.”

“Apparently keeping food on the table for more than 40 million Americans isn’t a priority for the president,” Brown said.

State agencies and community groups spent years building trust around the program that could evaporate if benefits lapse, according to the lawsuit.

As Truthout has reported, the USDA posted a hateful notice on its website blaming Democrats for the lapse in SNAP funding that experts say is a likely violation of federal ethics law. In reality, Democrats are trying to force Republicans to negotiate over health care cuts that threaten to send insurance premiums skyrocketing. If Congress allows enhanced tax credits to expire at the end of the year, about 22 million people with Affordable Care Act Marketplace insurance plans would see their premiums more than double on top of price increases already planned by private insurance companies for 2026.

Asked about ensuring SNAP recipients will receive their benefits in November, Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Wednesday that “we’re going to get it done.” However, the president did not offer any details on what action would be taken and once again attempted to blame the Democratic minority in Congress.

A separate federal lawsuit filed on Monday by the Legal Aid Society and advocacy groups in New York reveals how the administration is using the expanded work requirements included in Trump’s “one big beautiful bill” to kick people off of SNAP, cutting off food aid to millions. The class-action lawsuit challenges the USDA’s decision to abruptly remove a waiver for SNAP work requirements in New York.

In most states, working-age adults can only receive SNAP for three months unless they meet the work requirements by documenting at least 80 hours of employment or related activity each month. Since at least 2023, veterans, unhoused people, and others were mostly exempt from the requirements — until Trump signed the controversial budget bill in July.

Along with funding cuts, the massive expansion of SNAP’s work requirements could push up to 4 million low-income people out of the program over the coming months, including veterans, unhoused people, older adults, adults with children ages 14 to 17, and young adults exiting the embattled foster system.

Social service agencies in New York and other states that had received a federal waiver for SNAP work requirements due to high rates of unemployment are scrambling to update paperwork and help recipients document that they have a job or are looking for work. Updating the process requires time and money, but the Trump administration is pushing states to implement the onerous work requirements immediately as part of the GOP’s broader push to cut safety net spending.

Pavita Krishnaswamy, a supervising attorney with the Legal Aid Society in New York, said state agencies are already overwhelmed by the expansion of work requirements, which put about 100,000 adults across 300,000 households in New York State alone at risk of losing food assistance. New York’s waiver was supposed to be in place until February, but the USDA removed it earlier this month without explanation. That leaves state agencies with 30 days instead of four months to adjust, “a time frame that will lead to administrative chaos” and place recipients at “high risk of erroneous deprivation of food assistance benefits,” according to the lawsuit.

“We are staring the barrel of not having SNAP at all, which is absolutely unfathomable.”

“It’s kind of a perfect storm for states that have waivers,” Krishnaswamy said in an interview. “We are losing our [work requirements] waiver four months early, and we are staring the barrel of not having SNAP at all, which is absolutely unfathomable.”

Laeticia Miguel, a plaintiff in the lawsuit, lives in New York City with her husband, who is disabled and requires assistance making multiple visits to the doctor each week. Without the work requirements waiver that was recently nixed by the Trump administration, Miguel will need to find a job and submit documentation in order to keep SNAP assistance. However, she is unable to work because she is a full-time caregiver for her husband. As a result, she now faces the prospect of losing half of her family’s SNAP benefits after a few months.

“People rely on SNAP because they can’t afford food otherwise, and why can’t they afford food otherwise is because they are not making a living wage … or they are disabled or caring for people who are disabled,” Krishnaswamy said.

Krishnaswamy said the Trump administration’s attacks on SNAP are rooted in unfounded and stigmatizing narratives often spouted on social media by right-wing pundits, who baselessly assert that people who rely on SNAP and other safety net programs are taking government handouts instead of contributing to society. Research shows that most people on SNAP who can work do so, but across the country, many workers qualify for food assistance because employers pay low wages and hire on a part-time basis.

“You are not paying SNAP recipients to sit on their asses, you are subsidizing their employers that are not paying them a wage that allows them to live and afford food,” Krishnaswamy said.