By Nate Raymond
(Reuters) -A group of Democratic-led states sued on Wednesday to block U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration from cutting off food aid benefits for tens of thousands of legal immigrants by declaring certain groups of non-citizens ineligible for the anti-hunger program.
Attorneys general from 21 states and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit in federal court in Eugene, Oregon challenging recent guidance from the U.S. Department of Agriculture that interpreted a provision in Trump’s signature tax and domestic policy law as deeming permanent residents who were granted asylum or admitted as refugees as ineligible for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, known as SNAP or food stamps.
“USDA has no authority to arbitrarily cut entire groups of people out of the SNAP program, and no one should go hungry because of the circumstances of their arrival to this country,” New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, said in a statement.
USDA did not respond to a request for comment.
SNAP provides monthly benefits to 42 million low-income Americans. The benefits, which are administered on a day-to-day basis by states, lapsed for the first time in the program’s 60-year history during the record-breaking government shutdown that ended on November 12, prompting a series of legal fights by Democratic-led states and others seeking to force the Trump administration to continue funding them using available money.
In fiscal year 2023, about 1% of SNAP recipients, or 434,000, were refugees, while 3%, or 1.3 million, were other non-citizens including lawful permanent residents, according to USDA. People living in the country illegally are not eligible for SNAP.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which Trump signed into law in July, made significant changes to SNAP by imposing work requirements and generally restricting benefits to U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents, also known as green card holders, in keeping with the Republican president’s hardline stance on immigration.
DISPUTE OVER ELIGIBILITY RULES
The state attorneys general say that while the law restricted the ability of refugees, individuals granted asylum and humanitarian parolees to receive benefits, it did not prohibit them from gaining SNAP eligibility upon adjusting their immigration status to become lawful permanent residents.
Yet they said the USDA in guidance sent to them on October 31 went a step further by incorrectly listing those groups of non-citizens as permanently “not eligible” rather than stating they could become eligible if their immigration status changed.
The states argue that the federal law is clear that refugees, asylees and humanitarian parolees become eligible for SNAP once they obtain green cards and meet standard program requirements.
The states say they are now being wrongly forced to rush to overhaul their eligibility systems to comply with USDA’s directives or face the risk of penalties.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Additional reporting by Leah Douglas; Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Bill Berkrot)
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