Judge halts Trump administration from obtaining SNAP beneficiaries’ info
A federal district judge has issued a restraining order against the US Department of Agriculture from requiring recipients’ data in order to award SNAP benefits.
The action comes a month-and-a-half after Gov. Andy Beshear joined 21 other state attorneys general in his capacity as governor to contest the requirement. The stay, issued Sept. 18, applies to all plaintiffs except the state of Nevada.
“I joined this lawsuit because no Kentuckian – and no American – should have to worry about their confidential and personal information being shared unlawfully,” Gov. Beshear said in a news release.
Other multi-state legal battles Beshear joined against the Trump administration released AmeriCorps and education funds.
In May, USDA requested that states hand over the information of those enrolled on SNAP since Jan. 1, 2020, as part of President Trump’s executive order on “Stopping Waste, Fraud, and Abuse by Eliminating Information Silos.”
That information included household group members’ names, birthdates, Social Security numbers, residential and mailing addresses used or provided, as well as all data records used to determine eligibility or ineligibility, such as financial information.
The request for that information follows changes to SNAP benefits outlined in the tax-and-spend “Big Beautiful Bill” signed into law July 4. It includes raising the working age requirements from 54 to 64 and child dependents from under 18 to under 14.
The cuts have been calculated to save the program close to $230 billion over the next decade and are considered the largest cuts to SNAP’s history.
In court, the parties argued about USDA’s power to audit and keep citizens’ records, citing privacy rights.
“The Court finds Plaintiff States have shown a likelihood of success on the merits of [the plaintiffs’] claim that USDA’s demand and threatened disallowance of funding are contrary to the SNAP Act and, in all other respects, have failed to make the requisite showing,” wrote District Judge Maxine Chesney.
Currently, just over 560,000 Kentuckians are enrolled in the program according to the Cabinet for Health and Family Services. That number is down from July, which had nearly 600,000 recipients.
A hearing for the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction on the data requirements will take place on Oct. 9.
