Judge questions the Trump administration's plan to suspend SNAP benefits
for millions
[October 31, 2025]
By MICHAEL CASEY and GEOFF MULVIHILL
BOSTON (AP) — A federal judge in Boston on Thursday seemed skeptical of
the Trump's administration's argument that SNAP benefits could be
suspended for the first time in the food aid program's history because
of the government shutdown.
During a hearing over a request by 25 Democratic-led states to keep the
funding flowing, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani told lawyers that if
the government can't afford to cover the cost, there's a process to
follow rather than simply suspending all benefits. “The steps involve
finding an equitable way of reducing benefits," said Talwani, who was
nominated to the court by then-President Barack Obama.
Talwani said she expects to issue a ruling later Thursday and seemed to
be leaning toward requiring the government to put billions of dollars in
emergency funds toward SNAP. That, she said, is her interpretation of
what Congress intended when an agency's funding runs out.
“If you don't have money, you tighten your belt,” she said in court.
“You are not going to make everyone drop dead because it’s a political
game someplace.”
Talwani acknowledged that even ordering emergency funds to pay for SNAP
might still be painful for some SNAP recipients because it could mean
they get less money and that the money they do get could be delayed. “We
are dealing with a reality that absent a 100% win for you, the benefits
aren't going to be there on Nov. 1,” she told the plaintiffs.
The hearing came two days before the U.S. Department of Agriculture
planned to freeze payments to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance
Program because it said it can't continue funding it due to the
shutdown.
Other lawsuits have been filed over the program's suspension, including
one filed Thursday in Rhode Island by a coalition of eight cities and
community, business and union organizations.
SNAP, which costs about $8 billion per month, serves about 1 in 8
Americans and is a major piece of the nation’s social safety net. Word
in October that it would be a Nov. 1 casualty of the shutdown sent
states, food banks and SNAP recipients scrambling to figure out how to
secure food. Some states said they would spend their own funds to keep
versions of the program going.
President Donald Trump's administration said it wasn’t allowed to use a
contingency fund with about $5 billion in it for the program, which
reversed a USDA plan from before the shutdown that said that money would
be tapped to keep SNAP running. The Democratic-led states argued that
not only could that contingency money be used, it must be. They also
said a separate fund with around $23 billion could be tapped.
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A person shops for produce, which is covered by the USDA
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), at a grocery store
in Baltimore, Thursday, Oct. 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Stephanie
Scarbrough)
Although the states requested the funding continue only in their
jurisdictions, the judge indicated that any ruling would apply
nationwide, saying it wouldn't be fair to treat recipients
differently depending on which state they live in. A ruling that
would apply everywhere could defy the intentions of the U.S. Supreme
Court, which has limited the use of nationwide injunctions, though
it hasn't prohibited them.
Much of the hearing revolved around what Congress intended to do
when the agency runs out of money for the program. Talwani pushed
back against the Trump administration's argument that suspending the
benefits was the best option, saying using emergency funds for
benefits, albeit reduced, seemed to make the most sense.
“It’s hard to me to understand that this is not an emergency, when
there is no money and a lot of people are needing their SNAP
benefits,” she said.
Lawyers for the federal government argued that dispersing the full
benefits would violate a law that bars the government from paying
for programs without a congressional appropriation.
And in court papers, the government said partial payments would
require complicated recalculations of benefits that could take
weeks.
The plaintiffs argued in their lawsuit that failing to maintain the
SNAP funding would hurt public health, make it harder for children
to learn in school, drive up government health care expenditures and
hurt the retailers that rely on SNAP payments.
To qualify for SNAP in 2025, a family of four's net income can't
exceed the federal poverty line, which is about $31,000 per year.
Last year, SNAP provided assistance to 41 million people, nearly
two-thirds of whom were families with children, according to the
lawsuit.
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Mulvihill reported from Haddonfield, New Jersey.
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