The legal map lit up again this week, this time with 21 states and the District of Columbia marching into federal court in Eugene, Oregon, carrying a simple message: don’t take food off lawful immigrants’ tables under the guise of policy “clarification.”
Their target is a new interpretation from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which treated a provision tucked into the administration’s sweeping tax-and-policy package as a green light to exclude entire categories of non-citizens from SNAP. Refugees, new green card holders emerging from asylum grants, humanitarian parolees—groups historically welcomed into the program after their immigration status adjusted—were suddenly labeled permanently out of bounds.
The states say the USDA is rewriting the rulebook, not following it. Refugees and asylees, they argue, have always stepped into eligibility once they became lawful permanent residents and met the program’s usual requirements. Nothing in the law, they insist, rewrote that long-standing doorway into SNAP. The guidance dropped on October 31, however, took a heavier hand, telling states to treat those groups as if the door no longer existed.
That means rushed overhauls of eligibility systems, potential penalties, and, most urgently, tens of thousands of people left wondering why the safety net they were promised suddenly has holes.
While the administration frames the move as part of a broader campaign against “waste, fraud and abuse,” the states see something simpler: subtracting food aid from families based solely on how they arrived in the country, not on their need.
SNAP’s reach is vast—feeding around 42 million low-income Americans. Refugees make up about 1% of recipients, other non-citizens roughly 3%. But in the wake of the prolonged government shutdown that recently froze the program for the first time in six decades, every percentage point carries weight. The memory of those weeks still hangs over state agencies that scrambled to keep benefits flowing.
Against that backdrop, the fight now lands in court. At its heart is a question bigger than eligibility charts and federal guidance memos: who gets to decide when a newcomer has earned a place at the nation’s table?
And for now, the states are saying loudly—not like this.
