Chicago – November 2, 2025
A federal judge in Rhode Island on Friday blocked the Trump administration from ceasing to pay SNAP benefits that help feed 42 million Americans during the U.S. government shutdown.
The oral ruling by Judge Jack McConnell, which directed that those food stamp benefits be paid out of emergency funds “as soon as possible,” came a day before the administration was set to cut off the aid.
“There is no doubt, and it is beyond argument, that irreparable harm will begin to occur if it hasn’t already occurred in the terror it has caused some people about the availability of funding for food for their family,” McConnell said.
McConnell’s ruling came minutes after another federal judge in Boston, who is overseeing a separate but similar lawsuit, said that the group of states that are plaintiffs in that case is likely to prove that the suspension of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits was “unlawful.”
That judge, Indira Talwani, gave the administration until Monday to tell her if it will authorize at least reduced SNAP benefits for November.
President Donald Trump, in a statement on social media later Friday, said, “Our Government lawyers do not think we have the legal authority to pay SNAP with certain monies we have available, and now two Courts have issued conflicting opinions on what we can and cannot do.”
“I do NOT want Americans to go hungry just because the Radical Democrats refuse to do the right thing and REOPEN THE GOVERNMENT,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Therefore, I have instructed our lawyers to ask the Court to clarify how we can legally fund SNAP as soon as possible.”
“If we are given the appropriate legal direction by the Court, it will BE MY HONOR to provide the funding, just like I did with Military and Law Enforcement Pay,” he said.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs in the case before McConnell argued at a court hearing Friday that the cutoff of SNAP benefits was an “arbitrary and capricious act” that had caused “a crisis” for the Americans who need food stamps to eat.
