A federal judge in Rhode Island ordered the Trump administration to release full funding for November food stamps by Friday.
The oral order Thursday comes as nearly 42 million Americans have lost access to benefits under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program during the record-breaking government shutdown. The Trump administration previously agreed to pay for partial SNAP benefits using emergency money but said that doing so would result in weeks, if not months, of delays.
“Last weekend, SNAP benefits lapsed for the first time in our nation’s history. This is a problem that could have and should have been avoided,” said U.S. District Judge John McConnell Jr., an Obama appointee. The government “knew there would be a long delay in paying [partial] SNAP benefits and failed to consider the harms individuals who rely on those benefits would suffer.”
McConnell also noted that President Donald Trump’s post on social media that benefits wouldn’t be funded until the government reopened “stated his intent to defy the court order.”
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