Democrat-led states are at risk of not receiving SNAP funding because they are challenging the USDA’s directive from earlier this year that states provide information on SNAP participants.
“As of next week, we have begun and will begin to stop moving federal funds into those states until they comply” with the USDA’s directive, Rollins said, according to a Fox News clip of a Cabinet meeting that her X account shared Tuesday.
So far, over two dozen Republican-led states have provided the data that the USDA requested, but 21 states, including California and New York, have not, Rollins said in the video.
“If a state won’t share data on criminal use of SNAP benefits, it won’t get a dollar of federal SNAP administrative funding. Let’s see which states stand for accountability and which are just protecting their bribery schemes,” Rollins wrote in the post.
NO DATA, NO MONEY — it’s that simple.
— Secretary Brooke Rollins (@SecRollins) December 2, 2025
If a state won’t share data on criminal use of SNAP benefits, it won’t get a dollar of federal SNAP administrative funding.
Let’s see which states stand for accountability and which are just protecting their bribery schemes. ???????? pic.twitter.com/Y1UXXDOoao
In July, 21 states and Washington, D.C., sued the USDA over the directive, claiming that the department is illegally demanding personal and sensitive information about millions of SNAP participants. The lawsuit claims the Trump administration is trying to collect this data to fuel mass deportation efforts. In October, a judge granted a preliminary injunction that bars the USDA from stopping SNAP funding based on the plaintiff states’ noncompliance.
Rollins said that the USDA is seeking the information to fight fraud in the SNAP program.
A preliminary review of data provided by 28 states indicates that fraud and undetected errors result in an average estimated daily loss of $24 million in federal funds, according to a USDA letter sent to states on Nov. 24.
“That estimated loss will likely increase when data withheld by non-complying States factors into the analysis. Preventing such losses could save approximately $9 billion or more per year,” the USDA wrote in the letter. The states have until Dec. 8 to respond to the letter, according to court documents.
The threats to withhold SNAP funding from certain states come just a few weeks after states scrambled to address heightened food insecurity amid the government shutdown, when federal SNAP funding lapsed. A handful of states, including Virginia, Delaware, Vermont, Ohio, Rhode Island, New Mexico and Hawai’i, as well as Washington, D.C., set up temporary, state-funded financial assistance programs for SNAP participants.
