Data Standoff Creates Funding Crisis
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced Tuesday that the Trump administration will pull federal SNAP funding from Democratic-led states that haven't turned over detailed beneficiary data, including immigration status information. The message was blunt: "No Data, No Money."
The confrontation stems from a February data request sent to all states. While 29 Republican-led states submitted the information, 21 Democrat-run states declined. Now those holdout states face an immediate financial squeeze.
"As of next week, we have begun and will begin to stop moving federal funds into those states, until they comply, and they tell us and allow us to partner with them to root out this fraud and to protect the American taxpayer," Rollins said during the president's ninth cabinet meeting of the year.
The states in the crosshairs include California, New York, and Minnesota. Rollins accused them of prioritizing "illegals, criminals, and bad actors over the American taxpayer" and questioned their motives directly: "What is it that you are hiding?"
Fraud Crackdown Expands With Stricter Requirements
This funding threat is just the latest move in a broader campaign targeting alleged SNAP fraud. Last November, Rollins claimed widespread corruption including payments to deceased individuals and double-dipping across state lines. The department responded by ordering every recipient to reapply for benefits.
On Tuesday, Rollins also reinforced new eligibility thresholds that require able-bodied adults aged 18-64 to complete 80 hours monthly of work, volunteering, training, or studying. These revised requirements appear in Trump's Big, Beautiful Bill and represent a significant tightening of program access.
The administration hasn't released specific fraud figures to justify the crackdown, but context exists. The U.S. Government Accountability Office reported Tuesday that states reimbursed more than $320 million in benefits lost to theft between October 2022 and December 2024 through card cloning, phishing, skimming, and bot attacks.
In June, the USDA also uncovered a $66 million food stamp fraud and bribery scheme that led to arrests of a USDA employee and five others, demonstrating that fraud issues aren't purely theoretical.
The funding suspension begins next week, creating pressure on state governments to either comply or find alternative ways to support their SNAP programs without federal dollars.