United States 2 min read

Judge indicates she'll intervene in fight over SNAP food benefits

Author:

Editors Desk Source: CNN:::

Published 4 hr ago

Shoppers inside a grocery store in the Bronx borough of New York, on October 24. Kena Betancur/Bloomberg/Getty Images

The judge said ‘we’re not going to make everyone drop dead’ from hunger as the shutdown drags

A federal judge in Boston indicated Thursday that she will intervene in a high-stakes fight over the Trump administration’s decision to not tap into billions of dollars in emergency funds to help cover food stamp benefits for tens of millions of Americans in November.

“Right now, Congress has put money in an emergency fund for an emergency and it’s hard for me to understand how this isn’t an emergency when there’s no money and a lot of people are needing their SNAP benefits,” US District Judge Indira Talwani said near the end of a hearing.

The judge said she would work quickly to issue an emergency decision that could compel the administration to tap into the emergency funds, though she acknowledged that benefits will not be fully paid to millions of Americans by November 1.

If the judge orders the government to use the emergency funds, many beneficiaries could face a delay in payments as the US Department of Agriculture and states work to get the system up and running again.

It’s also unclear whether recipients will receive their full November benefits since the USDA’s contingency fund does not have enough money to cover the entire payments without drawing from other resources.

“It does seem to me really clear what Congress was trying to do,” the judge said. “What Congress was trying to do is protect the American people.”

“We’re not going to make everyone drop dead” from hunger, Talwani added.