President Donald Trump’s administration has launched a data-collection and sharing effort to root out waste, fraud, and abuse within the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, particularly involving illegal migrants who are ineligible to receive the taxpayer-funded benefits.
Unsurprisingly, a coalition of Democratic state attorneys general, co-led by New York Attorney General Letitia James, has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration to block that program integrity-focused effort from moving forward, the Washington Examiner reported.
James and her cohort claim that they are acting to defend the privacy and personal information of all SNAP applicants and recipients, but critics surmise that the Democratic AGs are actually working to protect potentially millions of illegal migrants — and citizens — who fraudulently receive the federally funded benefits they are not eligible for.
USDA requires states to share personal data about SNAP applicants and recipients
In March, President Trump issued an executive order aimed at “eliminating information silos” within the federal government to identify and stop “waste, fraud, and abuse” in various programs, primarily by encouraging and facilitating inter- and intra-agency data sharing.
In May, the U.S. Department of Agriculture notified all SNAP state agency directors of its intent to comply with that order, and last week, the USDA issued guidance on how and what data about SNAP applicants and recipients must be collected and transmitted to the federal government.
Coinciding with that guidance, and in response to assorted complaints and criticisms, the USDA also issued a Privacy Impact Assessment that, among other things, spelled out exactly what data the agency looked to collect and why it was necessary.
That included, but was not limited to, information like the names, addresses, Social Security numbers, education, employment, marital status, immigration status, and total benefits received, among other things, for all SNAP applicants and enrollees since January 1, 2020, through the present date.
The PIA noted that the personally identifying information of SNAP applicants and recipients “collected from the states and used by the SNAP Information Database is required to detect duplicate enrollments across states, verify immigration status eligibility, and perform other fraud prevention checks against other Federal agencies’ datasets, thereby ensuring program integrity, including by verifying the eligibility of benefit recipients.”
Notably, the PIA also highlighted no less than four federal statutes that granted the USDA the explicit legal authority to “collect and utilize SNAP beneficiary data for program administration and enforcement.”
Lawsuit filed
The USDA’s explanation of intent and authority was, apparently, not good enough for New York Attorney General James and the Democratic AGs of 20 other states, as they announced on Monday that a lawsuit had been filed in California to block the collection and utilization of the personal information of SNAP applicants and recipients — in part over concerns that the data will be used to identify and deport illegal migrants fraudulently exploiting the program.
“Families should be able to get the food assistance they need without fearing that they will be targeted by this administration,” James said in a statement.
“I will not allow the SNAP benefits that millions of New Yorkers count on to be put at risk,” she added. “We are suing today to stop this illegal policy and protect New Yorkers’ privacy and access to food assistance.”
Democratic AGs say USDA demands are illegal and unconstitutional
Per AG James’ press release, the lawsuit argues that “the administration’s new demands are unconstitutional and violate the Administrative Procedure Act by requiring states to violate federal laws and regulations” — despite the USDA pointing out on all occasions that it did, indeed, have the statutory authority to impose the data-sharing requirements on the states.
The coalition of Democratic AGs is “seeking a court judgment declaring that the administration’s demands to share SNAP data are illegal and declaring that the administration cannot disclose the requested SNAP data to the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) or the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for any purposes other than SNAP administration.”
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Author: Ben Marquis
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