NYS continues SNAP payments amid court fight, Hochul aide says

WASHINGTON — New York on Saturday continued to issue food assistance payments to the nearly 3 million New Yorkers enrolled in the federal SNAP program, despite a late-night Friday Supreme Court order issuing a temporary pause on the release of funds.

An aide to Gov. Kathy Hochul told Newsday on Saturday the state was continuing to distribute payments following the direction of a U.S. Department of Agriculture memo sent to states on Friday afternoon, hours before the court’s temporary injunction.

The USDA memo stated the agency, which administers the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, was working to “complete the processes necessary to make funds available” to states so they could distribute the “full” amount of payments due to enrollees.

Funding for the program, formerly known as food stamps, was set to be released on Nov. 1 but has been tied up in a legal battle as the Trump administration argues emergency funds, previously allocated for the program, should not be used as the monthlong U.S. government shutdown continues.

Hochul, in a video posted online Saturday, criticized President Donald Trump for escalating the legal fight over food aid, saying the appeal was filed “so they could stop feeding Americans.”

“This is cruel, it’s depraved, it has to stop,” Hochul said, before vowing, “The fight has just begun.”

The USDA had yet to issue new guidance as of Saturday, but in its Friday guidance it said it was working to comply with a U.S. District Court ruling in Rhode Island last Thursday that ordered the Trump administration to use a contingency fund to pay for SNAP benefits during the shutdown.

The Trump administration appealed the lower court’s ruling to the 1st  U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Massachusetts on Thursday, but after that court denied the administration’s request to temporarily block the Rhode Island federal judge’s ruling, Trump’s lawyers filed the late-night emergency appeal with the Supreme Court.

Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who presides over emergency appeals emanating from the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, issued an emergency order late Friday night granting a 48-hour pause on the lower court’s ruling to give the appellate court the opportunity to weigh in.

The USDA did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, appearing on Fox News on Saturday morning, said she supported pausing funds during the shutdown.

“We just can’t create money out of the sky,” Rollins said.

New York was among several Democratic-led states that moved quickly on Friday to start processing payments once the USDA’s guidance was issued. Massachusetts, California, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Vermont are among those that reportedly started releasing payments on Friday.

New York Attorney General Letitia James, in a statement posted online, said “the law is clear: if you have an EBT balance, a store that accepts SNAP must allow you to use your card.”

She urged those denied from using benefits to file a complaint with her office.

By Laura Figueroa Hernandez

laura.figueroa@newsday.com@Laura_Figueroa

Laura Figueroa Hernandez is the White House correspondent and previously covered New York City politics and government. She joined Newsday in 2012 after covering state and local politics for The Miami Herald.