Judges Order CalFresh Benefits Must Continue: What It Means For CA

A day before nearly 5.5 million California residents were poised to lose food benefits amid the ongoing government shutdown, two federal judges on Friday ordered that the Trump administration must pull from contingency funds to keep SNAP running amid the government shutdown, the Associated Press is reporting.

The judges in Massachusetts and Rhode Island said the administration can determine on whether to fund the program partially or in full for November.

The rulings came a day before the U.S. Department of Agriculture planned to freeze Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program payments and two days after California, along with 25 other states challenged Trump's administration on the decision to withold benefits.

“The Trump Administration knows that it has a legal duty to fund SNAP benefits, even during the current government shutdown. In fact, just last month, the USDA admitted as much in a document that it later deleted from its website,” said California Attorney General Bonta. “The Trump Administration must move expeditiously to fund November SNAP benefits.”

It wasn’t immediately clear how quickly the debit cards that beneficiaries use to buy groceries could be reloaded after the ruling. That process often takes one to two weeks.

The program serves about 5.5 million Californians under CalFresh and is a major piece of the nation’s social safety net. Official statements from USDA that benefits would be delayed in November sent states, food banks and SNAP recipients scrambling to figure out how to secure food. Some states said they would spend their own funds to keep versions of the program going.

In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom deployed the National Guard to assist at food banks. The governor and Bonta also announced the lawsuit against the Trump administration on Wednesday.

RELATED: CA Sues Trump Administration Over Food Aid Suspension During Government Shutdown

Amid the ongoing government shutdown, Bonta said November could mark the "first time ever" that SNAP benefits are halted for millions who rely on them.

"November SNAP benefits can and must be provided, even with the government shutdown," Bonta wrote in a statement on Tuesday. "USDA not only has authority to use contingency funds, it has a legal duty to spend all available dollars to fund SNAP benefits. The Trump Administration, however, has chosen instead to play politics with this essential safety net"

Newsom and Bonta say the administration's decision to suspend funds from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program is illegal. They allege that the United States Department of Agriculture has the funds to support the program and is needlessly withholding them.

Two federal judges agreed on Friday.

In Providence, Rhode Island, U.S. District Judge John J. McConnell ruled from the bench in a case filed by cities and nonprofits that the program must be funded using at least the contingency funds, and he asked for an update on progress by Monday.

Along with ordering the federal government to use emergency reserves to backfill SNAP benefits, McConnell ruled that all previous work requirement waivers must continue to be honored. The USDA during the shutdown has terminated existing waivers that exempted work requirements for older adults, veterans and others.

There were similar elements in the Boston case, where U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani ruled in a written opinion that the USDA has to pay for SNAP, calling the suspension “unlawful.” She ordered the federal government to advise the court by Monday as to whether they will use the emergency reserve funds to provide reduced SNAP benefits for November or fully fund the program “using both contingency funds and additional available funds.

“Defendants’ suspension of SNAP payments was based on the erroneous conclusion that the Contingency Funds could not be used to ensure continuation of SNAP payments,” she wrote. “This court has now clarified that Defendants are required to use those Contingency Funds as necessary for the SNAP program.”

Why Benefits Are Still At Risk

Even after the government shutdown and looming lapse in federal food assistance funding is resolved, hundreds of thousands of low-income Californians — along with millions of Americans nationwide — could still lose their benefits in the coming months due to program changes adopted this summer by Republican lawmakers, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Stricter work requirements for SNAP, approved as part of Trump’s tax and domestic policy package, are expected to hit California especially hard, as the state had long been exempt from those provisions.

The nonprofit California Budget & Policy Center estimates that more than 650,000 CalFresh recipients could lose their benefits under the new rules, the Chronicle reported.

"In California, CalFresh is our most effective tool for fighting hunger and has been the most effective tool in recent years at lowering the poverty rate,” Monica Saucedo, a senior policy fellow at the center, told the newspaper. “It’s one in seven Californians that rely on CalFresh, so any attacks on the program put food security for them at risk.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.