Dive Brief:
- The office of California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced Monday that it is suing the USDA, arguing that the agency is illegally demanding that states provide personal and sensitive information about millions of SNAP participants.
- California is leading a coalition of attorneys general from 20 states and Washington, D.C., in filing the lawsuit.
- The lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, claims that President Donald Trump’s administration is trying to collect unrelated, protected data to fuel mass deportation efforts and says that the USDA has threatened to pull funding from states that do not comply with the data request.
Dive Insight:
The lawsuit comes after Bonta led a coalition of 14 attorneys general earlier this month criticizing the USDA’s demand in May that states turn over information about SNAP participants.
In the May letter, the USDA said it was trying to eliminate “information silos” within the SNAP program, citing a recent executive order focused on stopping waste, fraud and abuse, according to the lawsuit.
“USDA claimed the agency would use this data to ‘ensure program integrity,’ including by verifying the eligibility of recipients, even though Congress has delegated that task to the States,” the lawsuit says.
The USDA directed states to provide personally identifiable information, including names, dates of birth, personal addresses, Social Security numbers and the total amount of benefits received for all SNAP applicants and recipients since January 2020, according to the lawsuit.
While the USDA says it wants this information to improve the SNAP program, the lawsuit claims that this request is part of “a number of similar moves by federal agencies to obtain and disclose highly sensitive [personally identifiable information], not for program purposes, but for the creation of a surveillance system to advance the President’s agenda, including by facilitating the President’s mass deportation efforts.”
The agency threatened to take action against states that didn’t comply, such as potentially pulling SNAP funding, in the May letter and again in July, the lawsuit claims.
“Any delay in that funding could be catastrophic for the State and the residents who rely on SNAP to meet their basic nutritional needs,” the lawsuit says.
The USDA said in early July that it wants states to provide the data no later than July 30 — just days after the July 23 deadline for public comments on the proposed action. The lawsuit said this quick turnaround made clear that the “USDA had no intention of modifying the proposed data collection based on any public comments it received.”
A USDA spokesperson told Grocery Dive the agency does not comment on pending litigation.
The state attorneys general argue that the USDA’s actions violate state and federal privacy and security laws, including the Privacy Act.
Bonta and the coalition also argue that the USDA has failed to meet the public comment requirements for this type of action and exceeded the agency’s statutory authority.
The coalition is asking the court to declare the Trump administration’s demands unlawful and seeking an injunction to block the USDA from initiating noncompliance procedures.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated with input from the USDA.
