The Supreme Court of USA this Friday allowed the president donald trump Temporarily suspend a court order requiring his administration to fully fund the food assistance program (SNAP) during the government shutdown.
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, in charge of reviewing emergency appeals from the Supreme Court in Washingtonissued a “administrative suspension”which stops, for now, compliance with the order issued by a lower court in Rhode Island, which required transferring $4 billion before the end of the day to guarantee full payments for the month of November.
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The temporary decision grants additional time to the appeals court to study the case, which pits the federal government against groups defending access to food.
The measure leaves in uncertainty some 40 million beneficiaries who depend on the program to cover their basic needs.
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The Department of Agriculture had previously reported that, while the court dispute continued, it would use contingency funds to offer partial payments to households enrolled in SNAP.
The case has become one of the main legal fronts of the current government shutdown, the longest in the country’s history, which has affected the financing of several social programs and the operation of federal agencies.
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The direct suspension of the distribution of food aid comes after the Trump Government, through the Department of Justice, went to the Supreme Court to reverse the previous court order under the criterion that they cannot execute funds while Congress has not allocated them.
