Federal Judge Blocks Trump Admin From Policing SNAP Recipients

The Trump administration’s obsession with curtailing food benefits has been partly staved off—for now.

On Monday, U.S District Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled that the federal government cannot block SNAP recipients from buying candy, soda, and other sugary treats, overturning restrictions in at least 23 states, and ceding back control to thousands of food-stamp recipients who deserve autonomy over the things they buy and eat. In the 68-page ruling, she declared that “Congress defined what ‘food’ is supposed to be, and it did not authorize the agency to amend or waive the definition it enacted. It did not authorize the [FDA] to cut types of food out of SNAP entirely.” 

Speaking to the New York Times, Senior Attorney at the National Center for Law and Economic Justice Katharine Deabler-Meadows called the decision “a major step in restoring essential food assistance to the millions of families that rely on SNAP nationwide.”

Of course, Jackson’s referring to less authoritarian times, when for nearly two decades, the federal government regularly rejected states that sought to ban “unhealthy” foods from SNAP benefits. Per a 2007 directive, the USDA agreed there were “no clear standards” that could define food as good, bad, unhealthy, or healthy; that grocery stores would be unable to enforce such bans, and that there exists zero evidence that participating in food stamps contributes to poor diets or obesity. That is, until last year, when Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins—the same lunkhead who told Americans to live off $3 plates of chicken and broccoli, only to later correct herself by including a potato to that regimen—approved an unprecedented waiver for Nebraska to ban SNAP recipients from buying soda and energy drinks. At least 22 other states followed with similar restrictions since. 

All this came as another manifestation of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s big MAHA campaign, backed by Rollins, who responded to Jackson’s ruling by accusing her of being an “activist judge” on Twitter. “SNAP is for food — not sugar bombs,” she wrote. “Taxpayers shouldn’t subsidize junk food and drinks at the expense of American health.” Funny. You’d think she’s talking about the $124,000 Pete Hegseth spent to bring ice cream machines to the Pentagon.

However, the administration’s also been sickly obsessed with ruining SNAP benefits, a program that benefits more than 42 million Americans. In July, it imposed the worst-ever setbacks to the hunger program’s 87-year history through the One, Big Beautiful Bill; in October, it let benefits run dry in order to pressure Democrats to fold regarding the longest-ever government shutdown; and in December, Rollins floated the idea to withhold SNAP benefits from Dem.-led states unless they handed to the government residents’ names and immigration statuses. In May, Rollins also bragged about cracking down on alleged fraud in the SNAP system, effectively kicking off 4.3 million Americans off the food assistance program. 

In her ruling, Jackson wrote that “the federal defendants and the states may have a genuine desire to improve the health of SNAP households by encouraging healthy choices at the store, and they can take lawful steps to meet those goals. But what they cannot do is violate the law and their own regulations along the way.” Alas… I’m not sure they know how.