Two federal judges just told the Trump administration it can’t turn off the nation’s biggest food assistance program during the government shutdown.
The rulings mean that the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as SNAP, must keep paying benefits to millions of families who depend on it. According to reports from Reuters and The Washington Post, federal judges in Massachusetts and Rhode Island ruled that the Trump administration’s refusal to release contingency funds for SNAP was unlawful. The courts said the U.S. Department of Agriculture must use roughly five billion dollars in emergency money to keep the program running.
Judge Indira Talwani in Massachusetts said the government can’t just let benefits stop when families rely on them to survive. She gave officials until Monday to decide whether they’ll provide full or partial payments for November. In Rhode Island, Judge John McConnell Jr. went even further, ordering the USDA to use its available funds immediately and continue honoring state agreements that allow families to receive food aid. The administration had argued it couldn’t touch the contingency fund without congressional approval.
The judges didn’t buy it. They ruled that the funds were created for exactly this type of emergency and that letting millions go hungry during a shutdown would cause what the court called “irreparable harm.”SNAP provides help to about one in eight Americans, including children, seniors, and veterans. If payments had stopped, many families would have faced food insecurity within days. Experts say this is one of the most significant federal rulings during the shutdown, protecting access to food for more than 40 million people.
For now, SNAP will keep running, though some delays could still happen while the USDA figures out how to distribute payments. The administration could appeal the decisions, but the message from the courts was clear: even in a shutdown, feeding people isn’t optional.
