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Press Release:

Attor­ney Gen­er­al Tong Sues Trump Admin­is­tra­tion for Ille­gal­ly Sus­pend­ing SNAP Ben­e­fits

Preceding Event:

On Oct. 10, 2025, the Unit­ed States Depart­ment of Agri­cul­ture (USDA) sent a let­ter to state agen­cies that admin­is­ter the Sup­ple­men­tal Nutri­tion Assis­tance Pro­gram (SNAP) say­ing that if the gov­ern­ment shut­down — which began on Oct. 1, 2025 –con­tin­ued, there would be insuf­fi­cient funds to pro­vide the full amount of SNAP ben­e­fits in Novem­ber. Accord­ing to the press release dat­ed Oct. 28, 2025, “approx­i­mate­ly 42 mil­lion indi­vid­u­als across the coun­try” rely on SNAP ben­e­fits to buy food.

Accord­ing to the law­suit, dur­ing pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ment shut­downs “SNAP ben­e­fits have nev­er been inter­rupt­ed by a lapse in appro­pri­a­tions.” The press release states that the USDA has bil­lions of dol­lars in con­tin­gency funds for the pro­gram to ensure fund­ing under these exact cir­cum­stances and that the agency has con­tin­ued to fund oth­er emer­gency pro­grams dur­ing the shut­down.

General Overview:

Accord­ing to the press release from Oct. 28, 2025, “Attor­ney Gen­er­al William Tong joined a coali­tion of 21 oth­er attor­neys gen­er­al and three gov­er­nors today in fil­ing a law­suit against the Unit­ed States Depart­ment of Agri­cul­ture (USDA) and its Sec­re­tary Brooke Rollins for unlaw­ful­ly sus­pend­ing the Sup­ple­men­tal Nutri­tion Assis­tance Pro­gram (SNAP), which helps more than 40 mil­lion Amer­i­cans buy food, due to the ongo­ing fed­er­al gov­ern­ment shut­down.”

The press release says that the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment delays in the SNAP pay­ments rep­re­sents the gov­ern­ment “mak­ing a delib­er­ate, ille­gal and inhu­mane choice not to fund the cru­cial SNAP pro­gram.” Addi­tion­al­ly, the press release states that “Sus­pend­ing SNAP ben­e­fits will also harm the hun­dreds of thou­sands of gro­cers and mer­chants that accept SNAP pay­ment for food pur­chas­es across the coun­try. USDA has esti­mat­ed that in a slow­ing econ­o­my, every $1 in SNAP ben­e­fits gen­er­ates $1.54 in eco­nom­ic activ­i­ty… Sus­pend­ing SNAP ben­e­fits in this man­ner is both con­trary to law and arbi­trary and capri­cious under the Admin­is­tra­tive Pro­ce­dure Act. Where Con­gress has clear­ly spo­ken, pro­vid­ing that SNAP ben­e­fits should con­tin­ue even dur­ing a gov­ern­ment shut­down, USDA does not have the author­i­ty to say oth­er­wise. The coali­tion will also be fil­ing a tem­po­rary restrain­ing order lat­er today ask­ing the court to imme­di­ate­ly turn ben­e­fits back on.”

Connecticut Nexus:

Accord­ing to the press release, “SNAP is a key part of Connecticut’s efforts to address hunger by sup­ple­ment­ing the food bud­get of low-income fam­i­lies so they can pur­chase healthy food. Thus far in 2025, an aver­age of approx­i­mate­ly 366,000 peo­ple received SNAP ben­e­fits in Con­necti­cut each month, includ­ing approx­i­mate­ly 215,000 fam­i­lies and 120,000 chil­dren. House­holds in Con­necti­cut receive on aver­age $324 per month in SNAP ben­e­fits to meet their basic sub­sis­tence and nutri­tion­al needs.

Dur­ing the fed­er­al fis­cal year between Octo­ber 1, 2024, and Sep­tem­ber 30, 2025, the Depart­ment of Social Ser­vices (DSS) issued approx­i­mate­ly $72,000,000 per month in SNAP ben­e­fits in Con­necti­cut, as described in a dec­la­ra­tion from the Con­necti­cut Depart­ment of Social Ser­vices filed with today’s law­suit. SNAP is also an eco­nom­ic dri­ver for Con­necti­cut local busi­ness­es, with approx­i­mate­ly 2,500 mer­chants in Con­necti­cut accept­ing SNAP ben­e­fits for food pur­chas­es. Many Con­necti­cut gro­cers rou­tine­ly increase their inven­to­ry in antic­i­pa­tion of the avail­abil­i­ty of SNAP ben­e­fits, and those who order food in advance may now be left with per­ish­able goods that will no longer be pur­chased by Con­necti­cut fam­i­lies, as fur­ther described in the DSS dec­la­ra­tion.”

Date of filing:

Oct. 28, 2025

Case #:

1:25-cv-13165

Case title:

Com­mon­wealth of Mass­a­chu­setts et al v. Unit­ed States Depart­ment of Agri­cul­ture et al

Plaintiffs: 25 states and D.C.

• COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS;
• STATE OF CALIFORNIA;
• STATE OF ARIZONA;
• STATE OF MINNESOTA;
• STATE OF CONNECTICUT;
• STATE OF COLORADO;
• STATE OF DELAWARE;
• DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA;
• STATE OF HAWAI‘I;
• STATE OF ILLINOIS;
• LAURA KELLY, in her offi­cial capac­i­ty as Gov­er­nor of the State of Kansas;
• OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR ex rel. Andy Beshear, in his offi­cial capac­i­ty as Gov­er­nor of the Com­mon­wealth of Ken­tucky;
• STATE OF MAINE;
• STATE OF MARYLAND;
• STATE OF MICHIGAN;
• STATE OF NEVADA;
• STATE OF NEW JERSEY;
• STATE OF NEW MEXICO;
• STATE OF NEW YORK;
• STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA;
• STATE OF OREGON;
• JOSH SHAPIRO, in his offi­cial capac­i­ty as Gov­er­nor of the Com­mon­wealth of Penn­syl­va­nia;
• STATE OF RHODE ISLAND;
• STATE OF VERMONT;
• STATE OF WASHINGTON;
• STATE OF WISCONSIN’

Defendants:

• UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE;
• BROOKE ROLLINS, in her offi­cial capac­i­ty as U.S. Sec­re­tary of Agri­cul­ture;
• U.S. OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET;
• RUSSELL VOUGHT, in his offi­cial capac­i­ty as Direc­tor of the U.S. Office of Man­age­ment and Bud­get;
• UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Court:

THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS

Status as of Dec. 1, 2025:

OPEN
Last fil­ing: Nov. 26, 2025

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