Around 250,000 Fresno residents and 5 million Californians could lose Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits as a result of the Trump administration’s revisions to the program.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) said on Tuesday that it would withhold SNAP funding from most Democratic-controlled states if they do not comply with providing the department with data on SNAP recipients.
The data the Trump administration is requesting includes the recipients’ names, Social Security numbers and immigration statuses. Most Republican-controlled states have complied with the request, while the Democratic states are refusing, filing a joint lawsuit against the USDA over the revision requirements.
The lawsuit filed by the Democratic states argues that the new requests violate privacy laws and asks the court to prevent the Trump administration’s request for personal data.
Democratic states believe that the data the Trump administration is requesting could potentially be used for ulterior purposes, like immigration enforcement, but the Trump administration claimed that it will be used for detecting waste in the program.
Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said that the revisions to the program are “necessary” to “root out the fraud” in the program.
According to Rollins, 28 states complied with the data request, and the USDA found that 186,000 recipients were deceased and 356,000 were duplicate enrollments.
Some food policy experts said that they believe Rollins’ statements misrepresent the number of SNAP recipients who commit fraud.
“My worry is that she’s risking setting a public narrative that this is a program that has more fraud than it actually does,” said Stacy Dean, former USDA official.
According to the New York Times, the USDA has not said when or how the benefits would be reduced, but did say they have sent Democratic states another data request, and if they do not comply, they will be given an official warning.
Around 24% of Fresnans rely on SNAP benefits. If federal funding is withdrawn from SNAP, recipients can go to local food banks like the Central California Food Bank or the Amendola Family Student Cupboard at Fresno State for additional assistance.
The USDA said that states that have not complied with the order have until Dec. 8 to respond to the data request.
