Nov. 1 (UPI) — The nation’s 42 million recipients of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits will have to wait for them to be restored after losing them on Saturday, which might take weeks.
The ongoing federal government shutdown has shut off funding for the SNAP program that enables recipients to buy food, but two federal judges on Friday ordered the Trump administration to continue it.
President Donald Trump on Friday night announced he is seeking ways to access funds to keep the program going as the federal government shutdown continues at least through Monday.
“I do not want Americans to go hungry just because the radical Democrats refuse to do the right thing and reopen the government,” Trump said Friday in a Truth Social post.
Trump said the two federal judges issued conflicting rulingsand he does not think the federal government legally can access available funds to cover SNAP costs.
“I have instructed our lawyers to ask the court to clarify how we can legally fund SNAP as soon as possible,” he said.
“Even if we get immediate guidance, it will unfortunately be delayed while states get the money out.”
U.S. District Court of Rhode Island Judge John McConnell Jr.was one of the two judges who ordered the SNAP benefits to continue despite the shutdown.
On Saturday, he responded to the president’s post by ordering the Trump administration to access $6 billion in contingency funds for SNAP benefits.
“There is no question that the congressionally approved contingency funds must be used now because of the shutdown,” McConnell wrote Saturday in a seven-page order.
The contingency fund is too little to cover the full $9 billion monthly cost of providing SNAP benefits, but SNAP is an entitlement that the federal government must provide to all eligible households, he said.
“To ensure the quick, orderly and efficient implementation of the court’s order … and to alleviate the irreparable harm that the court found exists without timely payment of SNAP benefits, the government should … find the additional funds necessary to fully fund the November SNAP payments,” McConnell ruled.
He ordered the Trump administration to make at least a partial payment of SNAP benefits by Wednesday and to report how it intends to do so by noon EST on Monday.
The Trump administration said it will take several days and possibly longer to get funds to the respective states and cover the benefits for those who don’t receive them this month.
If the government shutdown continues into December, the problem starts over again with no contingency funds available.