A lawsuit was filed against the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) opposing its latest guidance regarding Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefit eligibility criteria on Wednesday, 26 November. The lawsuit was filed by a coalition of 21 attorneys general at the Federal Court in Oregon.
USDA issued the latest guidance on 31 October, aligning with President Donald Trump’s domestic policy law passed earlier this year. The newer guidance underlines that not all permanent residents of the Country will be eligible for the SNAP benefit, mainly taking a jab at the immigrant class in the US.
The Coalition is led by New York attorney general Letitia James. She has been joined by the attorneys general from Washington, DC, Oregon, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin.
The lawsuit has come in days after an indictment against Letitia James was dismissed by a Federal Court in Virginia.
Recently, the New York attorney general said in a statement that the Trump administration is illegally cutting off the food stamps benefits for tens of thousands of legal permanent residents, according to a CNN report.
James also went on saying, "USDA has no authority to arbitrarily cut entire groups of people out of the SNAP program, and no one should go hungry because of the circumstances of their arrival to this country."
The lawsuit highlighted that the rule, which enables lawful permanent residents to become eligible for the SNAP benefits after residing in the US for five years, the USDA's latest memo has excluded a handful of immigrant groups from the list containing groups to whom this rule is applicable.
The New York attorney general argued that the guidance includes only some of the conditions that make a lawful permanent resident immediately eligible for SNAP, bypassing the five-year wait. It leaves out several key humanitarian categories, including refugees and individuals granted asylum, as per the CNN report.
The report also mentioned that, while the USDA representative did not make any comment on the matter, the lawsuit has sought a federal judge in Oregon to vacate and block the implementation of the USDA’s guidance.
