The three-judge panel of the First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston, Massachusetts, ruled against the Trump administration regarding the distribution of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits.
The court denied a request by the Trump administration to block a district court’s previous ruling that full SNAP benefits were to be paid to all 42 million recipients during the shutdown. Additionally, the district court found that the government’s choice “not to make full SNAP payments was likely arbitrary and capricious.” Moreover, the court ruled that the district court’s earlier decision was appropriate insofar as “the overwhelming evidence of widespread harm” from stopping SNAP benefits was more detrimental than the reasons the Trump administration provided to want to stop payments.
Moreover, the First Circuit Court also issued a scathing criticism of the Trump administration, stating that the issues stemming from the lack of SNAP benefits distribution “could have been avoided.” And it was also critical of the Trump administration’s request for a stay to withhold SNAP benefits.
“In reviewing the district court’s balancing of the equities, we also cannot ignore the particular events preceding this litigation,” read official court documents. “As the district court found, ‘this is a problem that could have been avoided.’”
“The record here shows that the government sat on its hands for nearly a month, unprepared to make partial payments, while people who rely on SNAP received no benefits a week into November and counting,” wrote the First Circuit Court. “In light of these unique facts, we cannot conclude that the district court abused its discretion in requiring full payment of November SNAP benefits to effectuate the October 31 temporary restraining order after the government had failed to comply with it.”
The court was also critical of the Trump administration’s request for a stay to withhold SNAP benefits, claiming that “the government has failed to show it is entitled to the extraordinary relief of a stay. It has not made a strong showing that it is likely to succeed on the merits. Nor does it refute the extensive record evidence of the enormous injury to individuals around the country that a stay would cause.”
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“We do not take lightly the government’s concern that money used to fund November SNAP payments will be unavailable for other important nutrition assistance programs,” read comments by the First Circuit Court. “But we cannot conclude that the district court abused its discretion in determining that the overwhelming evidence of widespread harm that a stay would cause right now, by leaving tens of millions of Americans without food as winter approaches, outweighed the potential monetary harm to the government and CNP, months into the future. Thus, we reject the government’s stay request as to the order…”
So, the First Circuit ruled against the Trump administration’s request to stop the distribution of SNAP benefits. However, due to last week’s ruling by Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the First Court’s ruling was on hold from going into effect for 48 hours, which, at this point, would be late Tuesday night.