Supreme Court Blocks Full SNAP Payments

President Donald Trump filed an emergency application at the Supreme Court Friday evening in a last-ditch effort to avoid sending out Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program benefits for November.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who presides over emergency applications from the First Circuit, granted Trump’s request. The Joe Biden appointee said that a temporary pause of a lower court’s ruling to fund the SNAP program was necessary to give the First Circuit time to review the administration’s pending stay motion.

Jackson said her order would expire 48 hours after the appeals court’s ruling, “which the First Circuit is expected to issue with dispatch.”

A federal judge had directed officials to tap a multibillion-dollar contingency fund to ensure benefits for 42 million Americans during the government shutdown.

Trump said the funds are depleted and can’t be replenished until Congress approves new spending.

“Such a funding lapse is a crisis,” U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer wrote. “But it is a crisis occasioned by congressional failure and one that can only be solved through congressional action.”

The SNAP program, which supports 42 million Americans — mostly children, seniors and people with disabilities — became the focus of a lawsuit by cities, charities, churches, nonprofits and unions after Trump said benefits would pause in November due to the shutdown.

U.S. District Judge John McConnell of Rhode Island, a Barack Obama appointee, issued the temporary order last week requiring payments to resume, but the administration said it would provide only partial payments covering half of eligible households.

In a sharp rebuke Thursday night, McConnell accused Trump of using the program for political leverage and ordered the Agriculture Department to transfer funds from the National School Lunch Program to ensure full payments.

Trump said that his administration would not “starve Peter to feed Paul, by gambling school lunches tomorrow in exchange for more SNAP money today.”

The administration warned that if McConnell’s order was allowed to stand, it would “metastasize and sow further shutdown chaos” as other beneficiaries sought similar relief.

“The court below took the current shutdown as effective license to declare a federal bankruptcy and appoint itself the trustee, charged with picking winners and losers among those seeking some part of the limited pool of remaining federal funds,” Sauer wrote.

Trump asked the justices to issue an administrative stay by 9:30 p.m. on Friday, claiming that the government faced imminent and irreparable harm. Jackson’s order came just before the administration’s deadline.

“District courts’ seizure of the power to allocate federal agency funds as they see fit would also invite a run on the bank by way of judicial fiat during this shutdown, as litigants race to the courthouse to obtain their guarantee of federal funds before it is too late,” Sauer wrote.

An appeals court rejected a similar request from the administration earlier on Friday evening.

Two dozen states warned that the ongoing legal battle over food assistance was stoking chaos and confusion. The administration’s plan to provide partial payments, the states said, since their distribution systems require reprogramming to process the task.

In Minnesota, they claim it would take at least six weeks to rewrite the system’s source code, then another six weeks to change the programs back once normal benefits resume. Pennsylvania claims its system would take “a minimum of 9 to 12 business days” to adjust to the government’s altered distribution amount and schedule.