New York Attorney General, Letitia James, is leading a coalition of 21 attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to stop the Trump administration from unlawfully cutting off Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits for tens of thousands of lawful Caribbean and other permanent residents.
James said the coalition is seeking to block new guidance from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) that ‘wrongly declares several groups of legal immigrants ineligible for food assistance, including permanent residents who were granted asylum or admitted as refugees’.
The attorneys general warn that the guidance would ‘saddle states with catastrophic financial penalties unless they immediately implement the unlawful restrictions’ and are urging the court to strike down the guidance ‘before it can cause lasting harm’.
Letitia James
‘The federal government’s shameful quest to take food away from children and families continues,’ James told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC).
‘USDA has no authority to arbitrarily cut entire groups of people out of the SNAP programme, and no one should go hungry because of the circumstances of their arrival to this country. My office will always fight to protect Americans’ SNAP benefits, and I will do everything in my power to shield New Yorkers from this unlawful policy,’ she added.
James said that, on October 31, USDA issued new guidance to state SNAP agencies describing changes under the so-called ‘One Big Beautiful Bill,’ which narrowed SNAP eligibility for certain non-citizen groups, including refugees, asylum recipients, and others admitted under humanitarian protection programs.
The New York Attorney General said the memo went far beyond the statute Congress enacted, asserting that anyone who entered through these humanitarian pathways would remain permanently ineligible for SNAP, even after becoming lawful permanent residents.
James and the coalition emphasise that nothing in the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ or any other federal law supports USDA’s new position.
‘Federal law is clear that refugees, asylees, humanitarian parolees, individuals whose deportation has been withheld, and other humanitarian entrants become eligible for SNAP once they obtain their green cards and meet standard program requirements,’ they said, adding ‘USDA’s memo attempts to rewrite those rules, ignoring Congress and threatening to cut off food assistance for people who are fully eligible under the law’.
The attorneys general argue that USDA’s guidance also ‘blatantly misapplies the agency’s own regulations’ and that federal rules guarantee states a 120-day grace period after new guidance is issued to update their systems without facing severe financial penalties.
The attorneys general say USDA now claims that this period expired on November 1, just one day after the memo was released, over a weekend, and in the middle of a federal shutdown.
‘This reading is impossible to implement under USDA’s regulations. it renders the guidance unlawful on its face.
‘States have already begun implementing the statutory changes enacted earlier this year, but USDA’s abrupt and incorrect directive now forces them to overhaul eligibility systems overnight,’ the coalition say, warning that the directive threatens to destabilise SNAP nationwide, increase the risk of wrongful terminations, and create widespread confusion and distrust among families who rely on the program.
‘Even more alarming, under the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ penalty scheme, USDA’s interpretation could saddle states with fines so extreme that some warn they could be forced to shut down their SNAP programs entirely – a disastrous outcome that would leave millions of Americans without access to the nation’s most essential anti-hunger program,’ the coalition adds.
In New York alone, James said compliance with USDA’s ‘unlawful guidance would force the state to cut off SNAP benefits for as many as 35,000 lawful permanent residents, leaving families without food and pushing thousands into immediate crisis.
‘The sudden loss of benefits would deepen hardship across the state and place monumental strain on other safety-net and emergency food assistance programs,’ she said.
Last week, James and 20 other attorneys general formally called on the Trump administration to withdraw and correct the memo. They said the USDA did not respond.