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The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday allowed U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration to withhold for now about $4 billion US needed to fully fund a food aid program for 42 million low-income Americans this month amid the federal government shutdown.
The court’s action, known as an administrative stay, gives a lower court additional time to consider the administration’s formal request to only partially fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP or food stamps, for November. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who issued the stay, set it to expire in two days.
The administration had filed an emergency request hours earlier asking the justices to put on hold a Rhode Island-based judge’s order that gave the administration until Friday to fully fund the program, which costs $8.5 billion US to $9 billion US per month.
The ruling by U.S. District Judge John McConnell in Providence on Thursday came after the administration said it would provide $4.65 billion US in emergency funding to partially cover SNAP benefits for November.
U.S. Department of Justice lawyers said in a Supreme Court filing that McConnell’s ruling, if allowed to stand, will “sow further shutdown chaos” by prompting “a run on the bank by way of judicial fiat.”
McConnell last week ordered the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to use emergency SNAP funding to cover part of this month’s cost. In Thursday’s ruling, he ordered the USDA to make up for the shortfall with money from a separate department program with $23.35 billion US in funding, derived from tariffs, that supports child nutrition.
McConnell, an appointee of Democratic president Barack Obama, accused the Republican Trump administration of withholding SNAP benefits for “political reasons.”
The ruling handed a win to a coalition of legal challengers comprising cities and non-profits represented by the liberal legal group Democracy Forward, and prompted the administration to ask the Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday to halt the order.
The plaintiffs told the 1st Circuit in court papers that the administration showed disregard for the harm that would befall nearly one in eight Americans if McConnell’s decision were paused and SNAP recipients were denied full benefits.
“The court should deny Defendants’ motion and not allow them to further delay getting vital food assistance to individuals and families who need it now,” the lawyers wrote.
The 1st Circuit on Friday denied the Trump administration’s request to pause McConnell’s ruling, prompting the Justice Department’s emergency request to the Supreme Court.
