Top House Democrats attacked the Trump administration Friday night over its blockade Food aid available For millions of low-income Americans, saying the decision is cruel and illegal.
“It is a disgusting dereliction of duty for the Trump administration to intentionally rip food from the mouths of 42 million children, seniors, and veterans,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said in a statement.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) maintains more than $5 billion in an emergency fund appropriated by Congress to fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in emergencies. But the department says it will not use those funds to cover benefits if the government shutdown extends beyond Oct. 31, according to multiple news reports.
innoteas first reported by Axios, the USDA said the reason is simple: The emergency fund is designed to respond to emergencies, such as natural disasters, and the current shutdown does not qualify because it was manufactured by Democrats. Spending money on SNAP benefits during such an event would be illegal, the USDA said.
“[T]The emergency fund is a source of money for emergencies, such as the Disaster SNAP program, which provides food purchase benefits to individuals in disaster areas, including natural disasters such as hurricanes, tornadoes and floods, that can occur quickly and without warning, the memo said.
The memo contradicts the shutdown plan published by the USDA earlier in the year, which stated that “Congress’s intent is clear that SNAP operation should continue as the program has been provided with multi-year emergency funds that can be used for state administrative expenses to ensure that the state can also continue operations during the federal government shutdown.”
The plan has since been deleted.
The new policy also states that the USDA will not compensate states seeking to fill the void with their own funding for food aid during the shutdown.
“There is no provision or allowance under current law for states to cover and reimburse the cost of benefits,” the memo says.
The reimbursement policy is not controversial. Democrats say any government funding directed toward direct benefits would supplement SNAP but not be considered formal benefits.
But refusing to tap an emergency fund to pay benefits is another story. and SNAP advocates – advocacy groups And the Democratsboth — have argued for weeks that any effort by the administration to withhold emergency funds would be illegal.
These accusations only escalated Friday night after news of the USDA memo emerged.
In a joint statement, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (Connecticut), the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, and Angie Craig (Minnesota), the ranking member on the Agriculture Committee, said the policy not only violates the law, but is a “callous” attack on poor Americans.
“This is perhaps the most cruel and illegal crime committed by the Trump administration to date — freezing funding already enacted into law to feed hungry Americans while sweeping tens of billions of dollars from Argentina’s door to his hall,” the couple said in a statement.