A federal judge in Rhode Island forced the Trump administration into a legal standoff over food assistance for 42 million Americans during November 2025, issuing repeated orders to fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program as the government shutdown stretched into its second month.
U.S. District Judge John J. McConnell Jr. escalated his demands after the administration missed court-imposed deadlines and President Trump publicly stated he would withhold benefits until Congress reopened the government. The judge mcconnell snap deadline crisis became the first time in program history that federal food stamp payments stopped completely.
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November Benefits Cut Off
The federal government stopped SNAP funding on November 1 after the shutdown began October 1. The Agriculture Department told states it lacked money to distribute the monthly $8.5 billion in nutrition assistance benefits.
More than 143,000 Rhode Island residents and 1.1 million Massachusetts residents faced immediate uncertainty about grocery money. Nationwide, 16 million children depended on households receiving an average of $188 monthly through the program.
Food banks in Florida, Arizona, and North Carolina turned people away before November 1 as families tried to stockpile supplies. The House had voted 217-215 in September to cut social program funding for $4.5 trillion in tax reductions, setting up the appropriations crisis.
Democracy Forward, a legal advocacy group, sued the Department of Agriculture in late October arguing the agency violated federal law by suspending benefits during the shutdown.
Judge Issues First Deadline
McConnell ruled from the bench on October 31 that the administration must use emergency reserves to fund SNAP. He gave officials a choice in his November 1 written order: distribute full benefits by Monday, November 3, or get partial payments to states by Wednesday, November 5.
The Agriculture Department had $4.65 billion in contingency funds available, enough to cover roughly half of each household’s monthly benefit. On November 3, the administration said it would use those reserves but warned the process would take weeks.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins posted on social media that “it will take several weeks to execute partial payments.” States began calculating reduced benefit amounts, discovering thousands of households would receive nothing under the formula.
Contempt Finding After Trump Statement
The partial payment announcement did not satisfy the judge’s order. McConnell had required the administration to “expeditiously eliminate” any delays if choosing the partial payment option, setting Wednesday, November 5 as the absolute deadline.
On November 5, Trump posted on Truth Social that SNAP payments would only resume when the government reopened. The next day, McConnell held an emergency hearing.
“In fact, the day before the compliance was ordered, the president stated his intent to defy the court order,” the judge said November 6. He found the administration had violated his previous ruling and ordered full SNAP funding by end of business Friday, November 7.
“People have gone without for too long. Not making payments to them for even another day is simply unacceptable,” McConnell told government lawyers during the hearing.
Appeal Reaches Supreme Court
Justice Department attorneys filed an appeal within hours of the November 7 order. Vice President JD Vance called the ruling “absurd” and said federal courts could not tell the president “how he has to triage the situation” during a shutdown.
The case went to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit, which denied an administrative stay but promised to rule quickly on the appeal. The administration then asked the Supreme Court to intervene.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who handles emergency requests from the 1st Circuit, issued a stay shortly before 9:30 PM on November 7. The order froze McConnell’s ruling for 48 hours after the appeals court decided.
On November 11, the Supreme Court extended the stay through 11:59 PM on November 13, keeping the issue unresolved as Congress worked to end the shutdown.
States Split on Distributing Benefits
Between McConnell’s November 7 order and Jackson’s evening stay, several states received USDA authorization to distribute full benefits. Nineteen states plus Washington, D.C. began loading November payments onto EBT cards that weekend.
Wisconsin, Hawaii, and parts of California and Massachusetts got full benefits to residents. Sixteen other states issued the 65% partial payments instead.
On November 9, the Agriculture Department sent a memo ordering states that had distributed full benefits to immediately reverse the transactions and claw back money from recipients. The memo threatened to cancel federal administrative funding and hold states liable for overpayments.
Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers responded on social media with one word: “no.” Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey threatened legal action against any clawback attempt.
Shutdown Ends, Benefits Flow
Congress passed legislation ending the 44-day shutdown on November 13. President Trump signed the bill that evening. The law funded SNAP through September 2026 and reimbursed the contingency reserves depleted during the crisis.
The Agriculture Department told states most recipients would see benefits within 24 hours. Pennsylvania processed $276 million in payments on November 14 alone. North Carolina loaded full November benefits for 600,000 households by Friday morning.
Some states needed several additional days due to technical issues with recalculating benefit amounts after the partial payments.
Court Record Shows Administration Failures
McConnell’s November 6 order detailed why he found the administration in contempt. Government lawyers knew partial payments would take weeks or months to process but did nothing to speed distribution or use additional emergency funds available.
“USDA arbitrarily and capriciously created this problem by ignoring the congressional mandate for contingency funds and failing to timely notify the states,” the judge wrote.
He rejected arguments that tapping other emergency funds would endanger child nutrition programs: “Contrary to the defendants’ argument, 28 million children are not at risk of going hungry should this transfer occur.”
The ruling noted the administration caused “irreparable harm” to families: “The evidence shows that people will go hungry, food pantries will be overburdened, and needless suffering will occur.”
A separate federal judge in Massachusetts, Indira Talwani, ruled October 31 that SNAP recipients would “likely succeed on their claim that Defendants’ suspension of SNAP benefits is unlawful.” Twenty-five Democratic-led states joined that lawsuit.
First Lapse in Program History
The November 2025 crisis marked the first time SNAP benefits stopped since Congress created the modern food stamp program. During the 35-day shutdown from December 2018 to January 2019, the Trump administration issued February benefits early to avoid any lapse.
Legal advocates said the delayed benefits caused immediate harm that could not be reversed. “You can’t eat retroactively when your SNAP was delayed,” Victoria Negus of Massachusetts Law Reform Institute told reporters. “Getting your benefits is better than never getting them at all, but it doesn’t help the harm you experienced in the past.”
The judge mcconnell snap deadline confrontation showed how nutrition assistance became a bargaining chip in budget negotiations, with federal courts ultimately forcing the administration to follow existing law requiring use of emergency funds during appropriations lapses.
