Justice temporarily pauses order requiring Trump admin to fully fund SNAP

By Peter Charalambous, Katherine Faulders, Justin Gomez , and Devin Dwyer

A Supreme Court justice has temporarily paused a lower court's ruling requiring the Trump administration to fully fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for the month of November by the end of the day Friday.

In an order late Friday night, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said the pause will remain in effect until the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issues a judgment on the matter. Jackson is the justice assigned to emergency applications out of the 1st circuit, and her order did not refer the matter to the full Supreme Court.

Earlier Friday, the Court of Appeals denied a request by the Trump administration for an administrative stay pausing the order to fully fund SNAP. The Trump administration responded by asking the Supreme Court to intervene.

As the court battle played out through the day Friday, at least nine states had already begun issuing SNAP benefits under the direction of the federal agency that operates SNAP.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which operates SNAP, told states Friday afternoon that it was working toward paying full November SNAP benefits.

A letter from the USDA stated that "later today, FNS will complete the processes necessary to make funds available to support your subsequent transmittal of full issuance files to your EBT processor."

A group of local governments and nonprofits had urged the Court of Appeals to keep in place an order requiring the Trump administration to fully pay for November SNAP benefits during the ongoing government shutdown. 

The Trump administration had asked the circuit court to issue an emergency stay of U.S. District Judge John McConnell Jr.'s ruling Thursday ordering the administration to fully fund the SNAP by today, saying they are saving additional funds to pay for child nutrition programs known as WIC.

At issue was whether a federal judge can compel the government to use $4 billion from Section 32 of the Agricultural Adjustment Act Amendment of 1935 to fund November SNAP benefits. 

In his request to the Supreme Court, Solicitor General John Sauer wrote, "Given the imminent, irreparable harms posed by these orders, which require the government to transfer an estimated $4 billion by tonight, the Solicitor General respectfully requests an immediate administrative stay of the orders pending the resolution of this application by no later than 9:30pm this evening."

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, posting on social media about the appeals court decision, called the circuit court's decision "Judicial activism at its worst."

"A single district court in Rhode Island should not be able to seize center stage in the shutdown, seek to upend political negotiations that could produce swift political solutions for SNAP and other programs, and dictate its own preferences for how scarce federal funds should be spent," she wrote.

The Trump administration says the Section 32 funds are needed to support WIC programs and that using that money to pay for SNAP would essentially "starve Peter to feed Paul." 

"Indeed, if every beneficiary of a mandatory spending program could run to court and force the agency to transfer funds from elsewhere, the result would be an unworkable and conflicting plethora of injunctions that reduce the federal fisc to a giant shell game," they argued in a court filing. 

The groups that brought the suit pushed back Friday against the government's argument.

"Defendants' bald assertion that they will face irreparable injury is entirely unsupported, and they callously disregard the grave harm that will befall Plaintiffs and millions of Americans if they succeed," they wrote, saying the $23 billion in remaining funds is more than enough to cover both WIC, which requires $3 billion a month to operate, and SNAP, which normally requires around $8.5 billion. 

As the legal battle continued Friday, at least nine states said they began issuing November SNAP benefits. 

Officials from California, Wisconsin, Kansas, and Pennsylvania said that full SNAP benefits were already available to some recipients. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul also said she had directed state agencies to issue full SNAP benefits for the month.

In a statement, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said that his state "acted immediately" to process SNAP benefits after receiving funding from the USDA. Vermont also processed full SNAP benefits for November, according to state treasurer Mike Pieciak.

Kansas officials said they had already distributed more than $31.6 million in SNAP benefits to 86,000 households, and Wisconsin officials said they had distributed $104.4 million to 337,137 households. 

During a tense court hearing Thursday, Judge McConnell accused the Trump administration of "withholding SNAP benefits for political reasons."

Last week McConnell ordered the government to use emergency funds to pay for SNAP in time for the Nov. 1 payments to be made -- but the administration, saying they had to save the additional funds for WIC, committed to only partially funding SNAP.   

McConnell, in his ruling Thursday, ordered the Trump administration to fully fund SNAP for the month of November by Friday. He directly rebuked President Donald Trump for stating "his intent to defy" a court order when Trump said earlier this week that SNAP will not be funded until the government reopens from the ongoing shutdown. 

In their court filing Friday, the Trump administration said that Trump was "just stating a fact," and not using SNAP as leverage. 

 "The district court also accused the President of bad faith for declaring that full SNAP benefits would not resume until the government reopens. But that was just stating a fact--the appropriation has lapsed, and it is up to Congress to solve this crisis," the filing said. 

The government has asked the circuit court to allow USDA to continue with the partial payment of SNAP and to "not compel the agency to transfer billions of dollars from another safety net program with no certainty of their replenishment."

McConnell himself denied a request from the government to stay his own decision, saying, "The request for a stay of this decision, either a stay or an administration stay, is denied. People have gone without for too long. Not making payments to them for even another day is simply unacceptable."

"People have gone without for too long, not making payments to them for even another day is simply unacceptable," the judge said.  

ABC News' Michael Pappano contributed to this report.