Source: uscourts.gov
A decision from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California is again blocking the Trump Administration’s demand for states to turn over personal information from millions of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) applicants and recipients.
According to a press release by California Attorney General Rob Bonta, the District Court held that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which oversees the SNAP program, cannot collect states’ records without an agreed-upon protocol. States rejected USDA’s proposal because it would have allowed the agency to share the states’ data with entities unrelated to the administration of federal benefits programs, contrary to federal law.
In 2025, the Trump Administration first attempted to obtain the SNAP data back when President Donald Trump wrote an Executive Order, entitled “Stopping Waste, Fraud, and Abuse by Eliminating Information Silos.”
The presidential order sought to enable the USDA to create a new data and security protocol, allowing for the agency to collect information related to participants of the program, including names, Social Security numbers, home addresses and immigration statuses dating back to 2020.
However, California Attorney General Rob Bonta and 21 other attorneys general, along with New York Attorney General Letitia James, announced a lawsuit to challenge USDA‘s demand.
In the Fall of last year, a U.S. District Court judge Maxine M. Chesney ordered a temporary injunction to prevent USDA from moving forward with the proposal. The most recent decision to extend that injunction makes it the second time the court has ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, or states, in the case.
“For a second time, we’ve secured a court order rebuffing the Trump Administration’s demands that states turn over data on SNAP recipients. Time and again, the President has broken the law, and time and again, we’ve stopped him in court,” said Bonta in a statement.
SNAP is a federally funded program that provides billions of dollars in food assistance to tens of millions of low-income families across the country.
(0) comments
Welcome to the discussion.
Log In
Keep it Clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Don't Threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be Truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be Nice. No racism, sexism or any sort of -ism that is degrading to another person.
Be Proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
Share with Us. We'd love to hear eyewitness accounts, the history behind an article.