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Prosecutors sue Trump for excluding thousands of legal residents from the SNAP program
New York.- A coalition of U.S. attorneys general sued President Donald Trump’s administration this Wednesday over changes to the guidelines of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) that excludes thousands of legal resident immigrants from that benefit.
The lawsuit seeks to block the new guidelines of the federal Department of Agriculture, which administers the program, which state that several groups of legal immigrants are not eligible to receive food assistance, including permanent residents who were granted asylum or were admitted as refugees, according to a statement from New York Attorney General Letitia James, who leads the lawsuit.
With the approval of President Donald Trump’s controversial fiscal and budgetary plan, the categories of non-citizens who are eligible for SNAP benefits were reduced.
On October 31, the Department of Agriculture ordered states to limit the eligibility of non-citizens, intending to implement the changes made by the law. “But, in reality, the guidance goes beyond the law, arbitrarily excluding from SNAP many legal permanent residents who remain eligible under the legal scheme established by Congress”, the lawsuit points out.
Remember that many of the plaintiff states then wrote to the Department of Agriculture requesting “the rescission, correction, and reissuance” of the guide, for being contrary to the law “and capricious” but received no response.
Prosecutors also allege to the court that thousands of legal permanent residents in the plaintiff states face immediate ineligibility for crucial SNAP benefits.
They warn that the guide would impose “catastrophic” financial sanctions on states unless they immediately implement the “illegal” restrictions, so they ask the court to repeal the guide before it can cause lasting damage.
They remember that federal law is clear that refugees, asylees, people on humanitarian parole, people whose deportation has been suspended, and others who entered the country for humanitarian reasons are eligible for SNAP once they obtain their green cards (permanent residency) and meet the standard program requirements.
“The Department of Agriculture does not have the authority to arbitrarily exclude entire groups of people from the SNAP program, and no one should go hungry because of the circumstances of their arrival in this country,” James said in the joint statement.
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