With only hours to spare before funding for the nation’s largest food assistance program would lapse, on Oct. 31 the chief U.S. District Judge in Rhode Island Jack McConnell ordered the Trump administration to release the $5.5 billion of contingency funds at the Department of Agriculture to maintain the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). This Rhode Island case was in response to a lawsuit brought by a coalition of cities, nonprofits, unions and small businesses.
The judge said at the hearing: “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. That irreparable harm will occur if this injunction does not pass and if SNAP benefits are not paid consistent with the mandate from Congress.”
