USDA is continuing to fight court orders requiring it to release full SNAP benefits for November, even as Congress works to reopen the government, perhaps within days.

In a letter to the Supreme Court Monday, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said the government plans to seek a stay of an appeals court’s order upholding a lower court order requiring USDA to disburse full Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program payments for November to the states.

After saying in guidance Friday it was "working towards" providing full payments, USDA issued a memo the next day to states that the provision of full benefits was "unauthorized."

Rollins acknowledged the litigation would become moot if Congress moves quickly to end the now 41-day shutdown.

Late Sunday evening, the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals denied the government’s motion to stay the temporary restraining order (TRO) issued by U.S. District Judge John McConnell Jr. in Rhode Island. McConnell's order remains stayed by the Supreme Court; Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson issued the stay Friday night.

“The record here shows that the government sat on its hands for nearly a month, unprepared to make partial payments, while people who rely on SNAP received no benefits a week into November and counting,” the 1st Circuit said. “In light of these unique facts, we cannot conclude that the district court abused its discretion in requiring full payment of November SNAP benefits to effectuate the October 31 TRO after the government had failed to comply with it.”

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McConnell, the court said, had sufficient discretion to determine that “the overwhelming evidence of widespread harm that a stay would cause right now, by leaving tens of millions of Americans without food as winter approaches, outweighed the potential monetary harm to the government” and child nutrition programs, “months into the future.”

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USDA has argued that it cannot fully fund SNAP without continuing appropriations and that using Section 32 funding, which comes from Customs receipts, would deplete child nutrition funding.

Jackson ordered the government to file a supplemental brief by 4 p.m. The plaintiff cities and nonprofit groups must then file their response brief Tuesday by 8 a.m.

Also Monday morning, a federal judge in Massachusetts issued a temporary restraining order in a case brought by 26 states. U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani stayed enforcement of the Nov. 8 memorandum from Deputy Undersecretary of Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services Patrick Penn, directing states to “immediately undo any steps taken to issue full SNAP benefits for November 2025.”

Some states had moved to make full benefits available to recipients following McConnell’s order but before the appeals court had ruled on the government’s stay request and before Jackson stayed the judge's order late Friday. 

The states have asked for a temporary restraining order asking Talwani to enjoin that memo, which threatened potential penalties. "[F]ailure to comply with this memorandum may result in USDA taking various actions, including cancellation of the Federal share of State administrative costs and holding States liable for any overissuances that result from the noncompliance," the memo from Penn said.

A hearing on that request is being held Monday at 3:30 p.m.

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