WASHINGTON: The US Supreme Court said Friday that the Trump administration does not have to immediately pay SNAP food benefits defunded during the government shutdown, a temporary order that leaves millions in limbo.
A lower court this week ruled that President Donald Trump’s government must fully fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for November by the end of the day Friday.
It ordered the administration to use contingency funds to make a multi-billion-dollar payment to states so they could distribute food stamps to around 42 million Americans who rely on SNAP to afford groceries.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson issued the so-called administrative stay that pauses the process and gives the court system additional time to consider the administration’s request.
Earlier Friday, the Department of Justice (DOJ) appealed to the court saying only Congress had the power to resolve the crisis.
“The core power of Congress is that of the purse, while the Executive is tasked with allocating limited resources across competing priorities,” the DOJ wrote.
But a lower court “took the current shutdown as effective license to declare a federal bankruptcy and appoint itself the trustee, charged with picking winners and losers among those seeking some part of the limited pool of remaining federal funds.”
US government agencies have been grinding to a halt since Congress failed to approve funding past September 30, and the pain has been mounting as welfare programs hang in the balance.
The Supreme Court ruling comes even as the federal government has made efforts to dole out the necessary payments to states.
Democratic officials have expressed frustration with the Supreme Court stay and Trump’s move to halt the SNAP funding.
“It’s disgraceful that the administration chose to go to court instead of fulfilling its responsibility to the American people,” New York Attorney General Letitia James, who has clashed repeatedly with Trump, posted on X.
Supreme Court pauses order requiring Trump fund food benefits
https://arab.news/9m8jk
Supreme Court pauses order requiring Trump fund food benefits
- Trump administration does not have to immediately pay SNAP food benefits defunded during the government shutdown
- US government agencies have been grinding to a halt since Congress failed to approve funding past September 30
US lawmaker Fine criticized by rights advocates, Democrats after anti-Muslim remarks
- Fine’s past comments include calling for the mass expulsion of all Muslims from the US, labeling of Muslims as “terrorists” and the mocking of the starvation and killing of Palestinians in Gaza, among others
WASHINGTON: Rights advocates and multiple Democrats on Tuesday condemned anti-Muslim comments by Republican US Representative Randy Fine who said on Sunday that “the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one.”
Fine, whose comments against Muslims have often sparked outrage, has dismissed the criticism and since doubled down on his remarks on social media. The Council on American-Islamic Relations designated the Republican US lawmaker from Florida as an anti-Muslim extremist last year.
“If they force us to choose, the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one,” Fine said on X on Sunday in a post that had over 40 million views as of Tuesday afternoon.
Some high-profile Democrats including California Governor Gavin Newsom called for him to resign while House of Representatives Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called Fine an “Islamophobic, disgusting and unrepentant bigot.”
Jeffries also called for Republicans — who hold a majority in both chambers of Congress — to hold Fine accountable.
“To ignore this is to accept and normalize it,” Democratic US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said. Fine’s past comments include calling for the mass expulsion of all Muslims from the US, labeling of Muslims as “terrorists” and the mocking of the starvation and killing of Palestinians in Gaza, among others. Rights advocates have noted a rise in Islamophobia in the US in recent years due to a range of factors including hard-line immigration policies and white-supremacist rhetoric, as well as the fallout of Israel’s war in Gaza on American society.
