A 48-hour deadline for the Trump administration to make the full SNAP benefit payments for November kicked in late Sunday evening after the First Circuit appeals court denied its request for a stay on an earlier ruling.
The Supreme Court had issued a temporary administrative stay on a previous deadline for the Trump administration to pay the full SNAP benefits during the shutdown to allow time for the First Circuit to rule on the appeal.
Once the First Circuit ruled, the Supreme Court had set a 48-hour deadline for SNAP benefits to be paid.
The administration said it should not be made to draw money from separate Child Nutrition Programs (CNP) funding to cover the SNAP shortfall due to the government shutdown, and accused the district court of overstepping its powers.
But the First Circuit’s denial of the stay on Sunday said “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,” the ruling said.
“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.
“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.”
This is a developing article. Updates to follow.
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