Trump administration still asking Supreme Court to block SNAP funding order

(WASHINGTON) — Amid efforts to end the ongoing government shutdown, the Trump administration has informed the Supreme Court that it intends to continue seeking a stay of a lower court’s order requiring full payment of November SNAP benefits.

That order remains on hold following a late-Friday night administrative action by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. 

Solicitor General John Sauer told the court that if the government reopens, its request would become moot — but in the meantime, the administration is making clear that it still wants the justices to allow it to make an only a partial payment of SNAP benefits for the month. 

The administration is currently seeking to “undo” hundreds of millions of dollars in SNAP benefits that went out after the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which operates SNAP, told states Friday afternoon that it was “working towards implementing November 2025 full benefit issuances” to comply with a court order. 

The administration asked the Supreme Court on Friday for an emergency stay of a ruling by U.S. District Judge John McConnell ordering the administration to fully fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for the month of November, saying it would partially fund SNAP with approximately $4.5 billion but that it needed the remaining funds to support WIC programs that feed children.

Justice Jackson granted the stay, pending a decision on the administration’s appeal to the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Late Sunday, the circuit court denied the administration’s appeal, rejecting the administration’s argument that harm suffered by the government by complying with the order would outweigh the harm suffered by the millions of Americans who rely on the food assistance program. 

“These immediate, predictable, and unchallenged harms facing forty-two million Americans who rely on SNAP benefits — including fourteen million children — weigh heavily against a stay,” wrote Judge Julie Rikelman. 

On Saturday the USDA told states that they must “immediately undo any steps taken to issue full SNAP benefits for November 2025” but 20 states said they had already begun the process of issuing full November benefits.

A federal judge in Boston has set an emergency hearing for Monday afternoon to consider the legality of the administration’s guidance that states “undo” SNAP benefits. 

A group of state attorneys general argue that it would be nearly impossible — as well as unfair and illegal — to unwind hundreds of millions in SNAP benefits after they have already been issued. 

“In the span of less than a week, USDA has circulated multiple formal guidance documents, each inconsistent with the prior one, forcing the Plaintiffs into a continual state of whiplash,” they argued in a court filing. 

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