US threatens to cut off SNAP funds to Democratic states in escalating fight over food-aid data demands

A political and legal standoff over food assistance data has escalated sharply after US Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins threatened to cut off federal SNAP funding to 21 Democratic-led states that are refusing to hand over sensitive information about low-income households.

At Tuesday’s end-of-year cabinet meeting, Rollins framed the showdown as a battle against fraud. The states, along with Washington, DC, argue it’s an attempt by the Trump administration to build a mass surveillance system using Social Security numbers, birth dates and home addresses of nearly 42 million Americans who rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

“We asked for all the states, for the first time, to turn over their data… to root out this fraud,” Rollins said. “Twenty-nine states said yes. Not surprisingly, the red states. But 21 states including California, New York and Minnesota continue to say no.”

She then issued the administration’s bluntest threat yet:

“As of next week, we have begun and will begin to stop moving federal funds into those states until they comply.”

The problem? She may not legally be able to do that.

Federal courts have twice blocked the USDA’s data demand, first with a temporary restraining order in September, then again with a preliminary injunction in October. The litigation is ongoing, and judges have raised serious constitutional questions about coercion, privacy, and whether the administration is effectively weaponising a nutrition programme to build a federal database.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta put it plainly after the October ruling:

“The President is trying to hijack a nutrition program to fuel his mass surveillance agenda. We won’t let that happen.”

SNAP, the lifeline helping 41.7 million Americans afford groceries, has rarely been used as a political cudgel at this scale. Cutting off federal funding, even temporarily, would plunge millions of low-income residents into immediate food insecurity and trigger chaos in state budgets. Democrats argue the threat is not only unlawful but deliberately punitive.

Whether the administration truly intends to choke off funding, or is using the threat as leverage to force compliance, remains unclear.