The Trump administration said it will begin withholding federal Supplemental Nutritional Assistance program (SNAP) funds from states, including California, that have refused to give up data about the program’s recipients.
U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced during a cabinet meeting on Tuesday that 21 states, most of them Democratic, have not complied with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) request for SNAP data in February.
“We have begun and will begin to stop moving federal funds into those states until they comply, and they tell us and allow us to partner with them to root out this fraud and to protect the American taxpayer,” Rollins said during the meeting, which was recorded by CNBC.
About 6,300 Cal Poly students rely on CalFresh benefits, California’s system for distributing SNAP benefits, receiving roughly $1.8 million per month, CalFresh Outreach program manager Liv Watts previously told Mustang News.
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The USDA is planning on targeting funds that help states administer SNAP and not the benefits themselves, a department spokesperson later explained to the Associated Press.
The request aligns with President Trump’s executive order requiring that “full and prompt access” of all government data and records be given to federal officials, in an attempt to combat inefficiency and fraud, according to the order.
The USDA found that 186,000 of 42 million SNAP recipients are deceased and that “a couple of people” were receiving benefits in six different states, Rollins said. This data came from the 29 Republican states that complied with the request, according to Rollins.
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The data being requested includes the “names, dates of birth, personal addresses used, and Social Security numbers” of SNAP recipients, along with the “total dollar value” of “benefits received by participants over time,” according to a letter state agencies received from the USDA in May.
The 21 non-compliant states and Washington D.C. previously sued the department, saying that withholding federal funds for SNAP “is likely to require them to cut staffing and otherwise greatly reduce their ability to comply with their obligations under the SNAP Act to administer benefits,” according to a U.S. district court document detailing the case.