The Trump administration is asking a federal appeals court to pause a judge’s order that requires the federal government to totally cowl meals stamp advantages for tens of hundreds of thousands of Americans in November.
The emergency request made Friday morning to the First Circuit Court of Appeals comes a day after a federal decide in Rhode Island stated the US Department of Agriculture should discover extra cash to make the payments, rejecting the administration’s resolution to solely partially fund the meals advantages program this month.
The Justice Department, which represents the USDA in court, instructed the Boston-based appeals court that US District Judge John McConnell had overstepped his authority when he issued his order Thursday afternoon.
McConnell’s resolution, DOJ attorneys wrote in court papers, “has thrust the Judiciary into the ongoing shutdown negotiations and may well have the effect of extending the lapse in appropriations, exacerbating the problem that the court was misguidedly trying to mitigate.”
“This unprecedented injunction makes a mockery of the separation of powers. Courts hold neither the power to appropriate nor the power to spend,” they wrote. “There is no lawful basis for an order that directs USDA to somehow find $4 billion in the metaphorical couch cushions.”
Earlier this week, the USDA supplied sufficient funding to states, which administer the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, to cowl partial advantages for November, after McConnell ordered the company to achieve this final week. That order was additionally appealed to the First Circuit.
McConnell stated on Thursday that the administration should present the extra funding by the tip of Friday. The administration is asking the appeals court to intervene by 4pm ET Friday.
States have been processing the partial meals stamp payments on various timelines, with a number of saying beneficiaries could begin getting their help subsequent week and others saying it might take for much longer. Illinois stated it will start distributing the funds on Friday to those that had been scheduled to get their advantages earlier within the month, whereas others will obtain theirs on time.
Nearly 42 million Americans obtain meals stamps, with payments distributed on a staggered schedule all through the month.