Jennings joined a coalition of 21 attorneys general in suing the Trump administration for threatening states with “millions of dollars” in fines related to their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program operations.
New guidance from the USDA would have blocked SNAP benefits from tens of thousands of immigrants, which the coalition argues are lawful permanent residents of the United States.
This comes as part of sweeping SNAP changes promised by US Ag Secretary Brooke Rollin, where she commented during this year's government shutdown that attention on the program "has given us a platform to completely deconstruct the program."
The administration reversed course, allowing lawful permanent residents to again be eligible for benefits, but still threatened states with financial penalties.
That coalition, led by New York Attorney General Letitia James, argued the fees would cause undue and untenable financial burden on states, and the deadline the Trump administration gave was the same day final guidance was issued- December 10th.
"USDA has no authority to arbitrarily cut entire groups of people out of the SNAP program, and no one should go hungry because of the circumstances of their arrival to this country." she said in a statement.
U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon issued an order temporarily blocking those penalties and will prohibit the federal government from continuing to seek those penalties as the case proceeds.
Jennings said in a statement:
“It is shameful that, yet again, we’ve had to force the Trump Administration to simply follow the law and let vulnerable Delawareans feed their families. We have had to sue this Administration more than 40 times this year alone, and we will continue to do so every time they threaten my constituents.”
