By Nate Raymond
(Reuters) -President Donald Trump’s administration cannot suspend food aid for millions of Americans during the ongoing government shutdown, two federal judges ruled on Friday, saying the government must use contingency funds to pay for the benefits.
The dual rulings by judges in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, issued within minutes of each other, came in a pair of lawsuits seeking to block the U.S. Department of Agriculture from suspending Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, known as SNAP or food stamps, starting on Saturday.
The USDA has said insufficient funds exist to pay full benefits to 42 million low-income Americans, as they cost $8.5 billion to $9 billion per month. The Trump administration contends the agency lacks authority to pay them until Congress passes a spending bill ending a government shutdown that began October 1.
But U.S. District Judge John McConnell in Providence, at the end of a virtual hearing, held in a lawsuit by cities, nonprofits and a union that the administration’s decision to not tap $5.25 billion in contingency funds to fund November’s benefits was arbitrary, adding they had never before been suspended.
“There is no doubt and it is beyond argument that irreparable harm will begin to occur if it hasn’t already occurred in the terror it has caused some people about the availability of funding for food, for their family,” McConnell said.
Minutes earlier, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston ruled the administration was wrong that it was legally barred from using the contingency funds to pay for SNAP benefits during the shutdown. That lawsuit was brought by 25 Democratic-led states and the District of Columbia.
The USDA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The plaintiffs argued that USDA still had funds available to fulfill its obligation to pay SNAP benefits even while the shutdown continues.
Such available funding includes $5.25 billion in contingency funds that Congress has previously provided the USDA for use when “necessary to carry out program operations,” the plaintiffs said.
Aside from the contingency funds, the plaintiffs argued that a separate fund with around $23 billion in it could also be utilized to avoid what would be an unprecedented suspension of SNAP benefits.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond; editing by Noeleen Walder, Rami Ayyub and Deepa Babington)
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