Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a co-plaintiff in the lawsuit, said that the Trump administration and Department of Agriculture are clearly circumventing the law.
More than 20 attorneys general have filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture, challenging recent Trump administration policy that prohibits certain immigrants, including refugees and asylum-seekers, from receiving Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits.
According to CNN, the coalition is led by New York State Attorney General Letitia James.
In a statement announcing the lawsuit, James said that the Trump administration broke the law by limiting benefits, potentially affecting tens of thousands of legal permanent residents.
“The federal government’s shameful quest to take food away from children and families continues,” James said. “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.”
The U.S. Department of Agriculture issued new guidance at the end of October, instructing states to narrow their eligibility for SNAP benefits. The new guidance broadly aligns with a Trump administration-sponsored domestic policy law that passed earlier this year, a provision of which requires legal permanent residents to have lived in the United States for at least five years before applying for receiving food stamps. However, James and her colleagues say that the scope of the SNAP-related restrictions goes beyond what was included in the law, prohibiting anyone who first came to the United States for humanitarian reasons from receiving benefits, even if they later become permanent residents.
“The guidance in reality goes beyond the act, arbitrarily excluding from SNAP many lawful permanent residents who remain eligible under the statutory scheme established by Congress,” says the lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon.
“The problem is that the Guidance lists some, but not all, of the conditions that render an (lawful permanent resident) immediately eligible for SNAP without a five-year waiting period,” the lawsuit alleges. “It omits key categories of Humanitarian Immigrant Groups, like Refugees and Individuals Granted Asylum.”
Some groups, including “Certain Afghan and Ukrainian parolees, Iraqi and Afghan Special Immigrants … and Victims of Severe Trafficking,” for instance, are ordinarily exempted from the five-year requirement. Attorneys claim that the Department of Agriculture’s rule doesn’t clearly recognize these exemptions, nor does it appear written to accommodate them.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a co-plaintiff in the lawsuit, said that the Trump administration and Department of Agriculture are clearly circumventing the law.
“The law is clear on who can receive SNAP benefits, yet the Trump Administration is trying to strip rightful recipients of the support they need to feed their families,” Nessel said in a press release. “It is my hope that the Court puts an end to this unlawful guidance and stops the White House’s ongoing chaos and confusion over Americans’ ability to put food on the table.”
James, Nessel, and the other attorneys general are seeking an injunction preventing states from implementing the Department of Agriculture’s guidance.
Sources
Letitia James leads suit against Trump admin. over blocking SNAP benefits to some legal immigrants
Nessel joins lawsuit against USDA for cutting off SNAP benefits to certain legal immigrants
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