The Community Kitchen run by Food Bank for NYC serves New Yorkers during the government shutdown. The Trump administration is threatening to withhold SNAP benefits unless democratic leaders hand over personal data of food stamp recipients. Steve Sanchez/Sipa USA via AP
The United States Department of Agriculture is threatening to withhold federal funding for food stamps for more than 20 Democratic-led states that have refused to hand over sensitive personal data about millions of participants in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.
The agriculture department is seeking personal information like Social Security numbers, birth dates, and home addresses—information it claims will aid officials in rooting out fraud. Democratic leaders have warned the data could be used for other policies not related to keeping people fed, like immigration enforcement.
During a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, USDA Secretary Brooke L. Rollins said that leaders have until next week to send in data or the department will “begin to stop moving federal funds into those states,” adding that her office wants the data to “protect the American taxpayer.” If the administration follows through on this deadline, according to the New York Times, more than 20 million beneficiaries could be affected.
“NO DATA, NO MONEY,” Rollins wrote on X, “it’s that simple.”
According to the agency, since the administration asked states for SNAP recipients’ data in May, 28 largely Republican-controlled states have already complied.
The move comes after SNAP recipients across the country have just recently emerged from the confusion and frustration surrounding whether they would get money for food during the longest government shutdown in US history. It’s unclear how the secretary’s current request will impact—or avert—the ongoing SNAP-related legal battles between states and the Trump administration.
Just last week, Democratic attorneys general from 21 states and the District of Columbia sued the Trump administration over language within the GOP’s tax and spending package, which the group says unlawfully blocks certain groups of legal immigrants from accessing SNAP benefits.
Following the secretary’s Tuesday announcement, Democratic governors across the country accused the Trump administration of, once again, playing politics with peoples’ hunger.
“We no longer take the Trump Administration’s words at face value — we’ll see what they actually do in reality,” Marissa Saldivar, a spokesperson for California Gov. Gavin Newsom, said in a statement. “Cutting programs that feed American children is morally repugnant.”
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul posted on X, “Genuine question: Why is the Trump Administration so hellbent on people going hungry?”
Claire Lancaster, a spokesperson for Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, said the state’s leader “wishes President Trump would be a president for all Americans rather than taking out his political vendettas on the people who need these benefits the most.”
“The Trump Administration is once again playing politics with the ability of working parents with children, seniors and people with disabilities to get food,” Maura Healey, the governor of Massachusetts, said in a statement, calling the move “truly appalling and cruel.”
