The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programme (Snap) is a vital lifeline for millions of Americans who rely on it to afford groceries. Photo / The Washington Post
US Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has temporarily blocked a judge’s order directing the Trump administration to release November food assistance benefits in full.
Jackson issued an administrative stay on Saturday, pausing lower-court rulings that the Trump administration had resisted amid a legal battle over whether federal officials would deliver the funds.
Earlier in the day, the Trump administration had said it was working to release the benefits to comply with a court order, suggesting the money would be disbursed for a programme that is a vital lifeline for millions of people who rely on it to afford groceries.
In her brief order, Justice Jackson said she was pausing the lower court’s directives to allow an appeals court time to issue a ruling on the matter.
The developments came amid ongoing court fights over Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programme (Snap) benefits, which have been in limbo during the federal Government shutdown and with the Trump administration resisting using other money to foot the bill.
Snap benefits, which are the country’s largest anti-hunger programme, provide aid to about 42 million people, mostly children, the elderly and adults with disabilities. The funding hold-up has left families across the US in a state of uncertainty and stretched budgets as they wait for aid.
A federal judge on Friday ordered the Trump administration to release the full benefits for November, writing that he “found that irreparable harm would occur if millions of people were forced to go without funds for food”.
In his order, US District Judge John J. McConnell jnr in Rhode Island directed the administration to make full payments the next day by using other funds. He also admonished federal officials for opting to make partial payments, saying they knew this would only further delay getting aid to people.
“Such conduct is more than poor judgment; it is arbitrary and capricious,” wrote McConnell, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama.
The Trump administration has said the lack of funds for Snap benefits is because of “congressional failure” and argued against tapping other pools of money. In court papers, the Justice Department said the administration was declining “to raid an entirely different programme” that would lead to a shortfall in funding school meals.
The Justice Department appealed to the US Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit, asking the judges to pause McConnell’s orders. The agency said McConnell was making “a mockery of the separation of powers” by directing Government officials to transfer funds from one food-security programme to another.
A three-judge panel with that court declined Saturday to temporarily stop McConnell’s order but said it was still weighing a request to pause his ruling pending an appeal. The Supreme Court’s administrative order paused McConnell’s ruling until the panel rules on the motion.
With the circuit court request still pending, the Trump administration had sought emergency relief at the Supreme Court, asking the justices to halt McConnell’s directive.
If the high court did not act, “the Government will be forced to make an irretrievable transfer of billions of dollars by the end of today”, Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote in a filing.
Once the administration transfers the required US$4 billion ($7.2b), Sauer wrote, states would disburse the money and federal officials could not reclaim it. And some had already released full Snap benefits for the month, he said.
Sauer assailed McConnell’s order, writing that the judge was “commandeering sensitive funding-allocation decisions in the middle of a shutdown, in ways that frustrate efforts to end that shutdown”.
The funding lapse is a crisis created by Congress and to be solved by the same body, Sauer wrote.
He also contended McConnell was creating a dangerous precedent in which judges could dictate when government officials shift around funding to cover shortfalls, “precisely the sort of decision that Congress committed to agency discretion and placed beyond the reach of judges”.
Attorney-General Pam Bondi criticised McConnell as well, writing in social media posts that his order was “utterly lawless” and “judicial activism”.
On Friday, the Agriculture Department signalled its plans to adhere to McConnell’s ruling in a notice sent to states, indicating that as of that time, the funds were going to arrive.
The Agriculture Department was “working towards implementing November 2025 full benefit issuances in compliance” with the order and “will complete the processes necessary to make funds available” on Saturday, wrote Patrick A. Penn, deputy under secretary for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services within the department. The department, as well as state officials who received the notice, shared copies of it with The Washington Post.
Before the administration petitioned the Supreme Court, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services said it had received notice Friday that the Agriculture Department “will fully fund November” Snap benefits. The North Carolina agency said in a statement that as it “works with federal partners to get the remainder of November processed, beneficiaries could see the additional funds” on their cards this weekend.
State officials sought to figure out Saturday what to make of the evolving landscape regarding the benefits. One official called it “a rapidly shifting situation”.
A spokesperson for the Missouri Department of Social Services said that agency anticipated people in the state would start receiving their Snap benefits by the middle of next week. The timeline would remain the same whether people are receiving partial or complete benefits, the spokesperson said.
Other officials, meanwhile, had said they were moving ahead to hand out benefits or preparing to do so. The office of Oregon Governor Tina Kotek, a Democrat, said in a statement that at her direction, the state’s Department of Human Services had “worked through the night to issue full November benefits by Friday morning [local time] so families across the state can access the food they need”.
Plaintiffs in the court case McConnell had before him – a group that includes non-profits and several cities warning they will have to divert resources to support families that rely on Snap aid – said the Trump administration’s arguments about the funding “callously disregard the grave harm” facing millions of people without the benefits.
“For an entire week now, these families have gone without urgently needed assistance to meet their basic nutritional needs,” they wrote in a court filing Friday.
In court papers, plaintiffs in the case said granting even a brief stay of McConnell’s order could severely hurt the public.
Millions of people will go hungry without Snap benefits, they wrote. And the problems expand outward, they continued, writing that organisations and cities trying to help fill the gap are facing staffing strains and struggling to provide resources and help in other areas.
McConnell, in his order, expressed incredulity at the Trump administration’s argument it could not tap other funding sources, writing the administration was prioritising “a hypothetical disruption in child food assistance” that could occur next May, if at all.
“It defies belief” the administration would focus on that potential funding disruption in the future “over the very real and immediate risk of children being deprived of their food assistance today”, McConnell wrote.
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