Trump administration must respond to judge’s SNAP order on Monday – NBC Los Angeles

The Trump administration is staring down a noon deadline on Monday to update a federal judge who ruled late last week that the Agriculture Department must disburse Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program funds.

The deadline comes as tens of millions of Americans continue to go without their November SNAP benefits due to the shutdown, which is just days away from becoming the longest in U.S. history.

Across the country, the shutdown’s impact was visible in long lines at food banks. This weekend in Texas and California, stadium parking lots were converted into mass distribution sites where families picked up boxes of produce, frozen meat and other household staples.

In the days before the November SNAP funding was expected to run dry, many state governments tried to help fill the gap. Last week, Democratic leaders from 25 states also sued the Agriculture Department, trying to force the department to use contingency funds to keep the program operating as the shutdown continues.

The department had previously argued that contingency funds were “not legally available to cover regular benefits,” but were instead supposed to be reserved for situations like natural disasters.

On Friday, U.S. District Judge John McConnell of Rhode Island ordered the Trump administration to make a full SNAP payment by the end of the day Monday or a partial payment by Wednesday. In order to make the full SNAP payment, the administration would have to draw on additional funding sources beyond the contingency reserves.

“There is no question that the congressionally approved contingency funds must be used now because of the shutdown; in fact, the President during his first term issued guidance indicating that these contingency funds are available if SNAP funds lapse due to a government shutdown,” McConnell wrote in his order, pointing to a 2019 Q&A email written by a SNAP administrator.

He ordered the administration to report by noon on Monday “what it will do to comply with this Court’s Order.”

McConnell’s ruling came after another federal judge said in a separate case that those suing the administration were “likely to succeed on their claim that Defendants’ suspension of SNAP benefits is unlawful.”

U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani of Massachusetts said last week that she will “allow Defendants to consider whether they will authorize at least reduced SNAP benefits for November, and report back to the court no later than Monday, November 3, 2025.”

More than 40 million people across the country use SNAP benefits to buy food, raising concerns about how low-income people will put food on the table if the program grinds to a halt.

Reached for comment, the White House deferred to the Office of Management and Budget, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said in an interview on “Fox & Friends Weekend” on Sunday that the contingency fund “won’t even cover about half of what November would cost.”

“We are working and looking at all angles right now. The president has been very clear. He wants us to do everything we can to make sure that we can keep these benefits going,” she said.

Food banks have seen a spike in demand that they have navigated with decreased federal aid. They get the food they distribute through donations from people, businesses, some farmers and also have gotten food from U.S. Department of Agriculture programs.

Aria Bendix , Fiona Glisson and Julie Tsirkin contributed.