By Leah Douglas
WASHINGTON, Dec 2 (Reuters) – The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump will halt federal payments that help administer the food stamp program to Democratic-led states next week if they do not turn over aid recipient data, according to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins.
Democratic state and federal officials have resisted an effort by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to collect data like immigration status and social security numbers of recipients of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, also known as food stamps, calling it an unlawful privacy violation. The USDA has said it will use the data to root out fraud.
“As of next week, we have begun and will begin to stop moving federal funds into those states until they comply,” Rollins said at a Tuesday Cabinet meeting at the White House.
“If a state won’t share data on criminal use of SNAP benefits, it won’t get a dollar of federal SNAP administrative funding,” Rollins later posted on X.
While SNAP benefits are funded by the federal government, states administer the program and each maintain their own recipient records. The USDA and states split SNAP administrative costs. Trump’s fiscal legislation known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill” will eventually shift more of the administrative cost and some of the cost of benefits to states.
The Democratic governors of 22 states and the District of Columbia sued the USDA in July over the data demand. A federal judge ruled in October that the USDA could not deny SNAP funding to the states because of their failure to submit data.
A USDA spokesperson said the agency has established a “SNAP integrity team” to analyze state data.
“We have sent Democrat States yet another request for data, and if they fail to comply, they will be provided with formal warning that USDA will pull their administrative funds,” the spokesperson said.
Twenty-eight states have so far submitted the data to the USDA, according to a November letter sent from the agency to states and included in court filings.
Nearly 42 million Americans receive SNAP benefits.
(Reporting by Leah Douglas in Washington; Editing by Alistair Bell)
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