MI Among States Suing Trump Administration Over Suspended SNAP Benefits

Michigan is one of 26 states that filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration on Tuesday, claiming the United States Department of Agriculture is unlawfully suspending the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program during the ongoing government shutdown.

Earlier this week, the USDA announced that the 1,474,400 Michiganders who receive SNAP benefits, or food stamps, won't get their November benefits amid the shutdown, which will enter its fifth week on Wednesday. In a notice posted on its website, the agency said it would not tap roughly $5 billion in contingency funds to keep benefits flowing into November.

The program helps about one in eight Americans buy groceries.

"Emergency funding exists for exactly this kind of crisis," Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said. "If the reality of 42 million Americans going hungry, including 1.4 million Michiganders, isn’t an emergency, I don’t know what is. It is cruel, inhumane, and illegal to hold back emergency reserves while families struggle to put food on the table. I want to be clear: this is a choice the Trump Administration is making, but I will continue doing everything in my power to ensure the federal government does not turn its back on the people it is meant to serve."

• Related — MI SNAP Benefits Won't Go Out In November, Officials Confirm

The shutdown began on Oct. 1 when the new federal fiscal year began without an appropriation by Congress to fund the federal government.

On Oct. 10, the USDA sent a letter to state SNAP agencies saying that if the shutdown continued, there would be insufficient funds to pay full November SNAP benefits for the approximately 42 million people across the country who rely on them.

In the lawsuit, Nessel and 21 other state attorney generals claim that despite the USDA's claim of insufficient funds, Congress has appropriated billions of dollars in SNAP-specific contingency funds to the agency in case of a situation like the shutdown.

"USDA has funded other programs with emergency funds during this shutdown but has decided that come Nov. 1 it will not use the billions of dollars in contingency funds for SNAP, leaving millions of Americans without the assistance they need to buy food," Nessel's office said.

Nessel's office argued the freeze will have severe consequences for millions across the country, who rely on the program to feed themselves and their families.

"It will affect school systems and college and university communities, where food insecurity will stand in the way of educating our students," Nessel's office said. "Suspending SNAP benefits will also harm the hundreds of thousands of grocers and merchants that accept SNAP payment for food purchases across the country."

Roughly 59 percent are Michigan families with children and 39 percent are families with members who are older adults or disabled. Additionally, more than 46 percent of Michigan SNAP recipients are in working families, according to an analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Joining in filing this lawsuit are the attorneys general of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland,Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.

Despite the lawsuit, USDA officials argued in a memo to states sent Friday that “contingency funds are not legally available to cover regular benefits," according to a Washington Post report.

“It has never been used to complement benefits,” a senior administration official told the Post. “We’ve never had a lapse in appropriations like this. It’s something that has not been tested, but precedent is for times of disaster.”

During previous shutdowns, the USDA allowed states to use the contingency fund to pay for SNAP, including during the longest-ever closure, which ran from December 2018 into January 2019 in the first Trump administration, according to the Post.