Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins at a information convention on Capitol Hill on Oct. 31.
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Anna Moneymaker/Getty Photographs
Because the controversy over funding the Supplemental Vitamin Help Program (SNAP) throughout the federal government shutdown dragged on in current days, the highest official answerable for this system pivoted to a brand new speaking level, calling this system that some 42 million Individuals depend on “corrupt.”
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins described SNAP at a current press convention as “so bloated, so damaged, so dysfunctional, so corrupt that it’s astonishing whenever you dig in.” The message got here as headlines highlighted meals banks warning of an impending disaster as cash ran out over the weekend for SNAP recipients.
The Trump administration introduced Monday it might partially restore some federal meals help funds after being ordered by two federal judges to take action, however warned they’d be delayed.
Rollins asserted on X on Sunday that an unprecedented and controversial information demand her company made to states earlier this 12 months had revealed troubling issues about SNAP. The U.S. Division of Agriculture ordered states to show over the non-public information of all SNAP recipients during the last 5 years, together with names, dates of delivery, Social Safety numbers and addresses.
“(W)e informed each state to ship us their SNAP information so we may ensure that unlawful immigrants don’t get advantages meant for American households,” Rollins wrote.
“In simply the states that cooperated, we have already uncovered huge fraud,” the submit continues. “The Democrat Get together has turned its again on working Individuals and constructed its whole technique round defending unlawful aliens. They know if the handouts cease, these illegals will return house, and Democrats will lose 20+ seats after the subsequent census.”
Undocumented immigrants will not be eligible for SNAP advantages and by no means have been. Solely sure classes of lawfully current noncitizens are eligible for this system, and state officers confirm their standing through the utility course of utilizing a federal information system. Mother and father of U.S. residents can signal their children up no matter their very own immigration standing.
Most states with Democratic governors have refused to show over their SNAP recipients’ information to USDA, citing federal privateness legal guidelines. A federal decide in San Francisco blocked the USDA from withholding funding from states that don’t comply and dominated final month that states have been prone to show the information demand was not lawful.
NPR reporting final month discovered that a minimum of 27 largely Republican states did flip over information for hundreds of thousands of individuals to USDA. (Rollins has since mentioned 29 states had turned over their information, although a USDA spokesperson acknowledged she had mistakenly recognized Colorado as a state that had given information.)
In an look on Fox Information on SundayRollins elaborated on what she mentioned the states’ SNAP information revealed.
“We’ve discovered 1000’s and 1000’s of unlawful use of the EBT card,” Rollins mentioned, referring to the digital profit switch playing cards utilized by SNAP recipients. “We’ve been shifting folks off of SNAP. We have got nearly 700,000 folks, I feel we have moved off simply for the reason that president took workplace. We have arrested about 118 folks.”
She added, “We discovered one man in six totally different states getting a profit. We discovered about 5,000 folks which might be lifeless who’re nonetheless getting advantages.”
Individuals with expertise analyzing SNAP and different security internet packages say such statistics want extra element and context about how they have been calculated to be evaluated.
“We’ve actual questions on how they’ve arrived at these numbers,” mentioned Nicole Schneidman, an legal professional with the nonprofit, Shield Democracy. Schneidman represents SNAP recipients and starvation and privateness teams who sued over USDA’s information demand to states.
“One factor that is actually essential for folks to bear in mind is that 42 million folks throughout the nation obtain SNAP on a month-to-month foundation. And so these numbers which might be being referenced are trivial within the grand scheme of the hundreds of thousands of individuals throughout the nation who’re receiving SNAP,” Schneidman mentioned.
Tracy Roof, a political scientist on the College of Richmond, identified that Rollins asserted she had eliminated 700,000 folks from this system, however didn’t specify why.
“In the event that they’re solely arresting slightly over 100 folks, then clearly a number of these 700,000 persons are not committing fraud,” Roof mentioned. “They’re most likely folks being faraway from the rolls due to current legislative modifications.”
An worker with the Houston Meals Financial institution fills packing containers with free items throughout their particular meals distribution on the NRG Stadium in Houston, Texas, on Nov. 1, 2025. Roughly one in eight Individuals obtain meals stamp advantages from the U.S. authorities.
Mark Felix/AFP through Getty Photographs
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Mark Felix/AFP through Getty Photographs
Deep cuts that Congress authorised to SNAP earlier this 12 months imply that some persons are not eligible for this system, similar to sure classes of lawfully current noncitizens.
And whereas Rollins has advised there was one thing suspicious about the truth that SNAP has expanded in recent times, Root mentioned the reason being “due to the excessive costs for meals and the truth that lots of people simply cannot stretch their {dollars} from their incomes sufficient to have the ability to feed their households.”
Some within the pro-Trump media area shortly reported that Rollins had discovered large numbers of undocumented immigrants enrolled in SNAP, despite the fact that she didn’t explicitly make that declare. The host of Fox and Mates, Rachel Campos-Duffy, claimed, with out proof, that “20% of illegals are on SNAP” in a query to Rollins.
The narrative suits into a bigger rhetorical technique by the Trump administration, mentioned Roof.
“The identical factor is being finished with Medicaid to say that Democrats are attempting to supply protection to all these unlawful immigrants, which it is not,” Roof mentioned.
The USDA didn’t reply to a request for extra details about the company’s findings within the state information, together with whether or not it had recognized ineligible immigrants improperly receiving SNAP advantages.
Even earlier than Rollins’ newest feedback, right-wing influencers have been selling false claims about immigrants accessing SNAP on social media.
Noncitizens account for lower than 5 % of SNAP beneficiaries, in keeping with USDA information from 2023. “Immigrants who’re eligible take up SNAP at decrease charges than U.S.-born folks,” mentioned Julia Gelatt, the affiliate director of the U.S. program at Migration Coverage Institute. Gelatt mentioned participation charges are particularly low for eligible members in blended standing households.
The USDA is verifying the citizenship or immigration standing of all SNAP recipients whose information they obtain from states, in keeping with the USDA’s filings in federal court docket. The company is utilizing a federal information system often called SAVE that the Trump administration has become a citizenship lookup software by linking varied information units for the primary time. USDA has not but revealed the findings of its SAVE checks.
Shield Democracy’s Nicole Schneidman mentioned she had issues on the outset of USDA’s information assortment from states that it may very well be used to bolster an inaccurate narrative about fraud to justify shrinking this system.
“These claims, and the technique of making an attempt to undermine the caliber of a elementary social security internet on this nation, is precisely what we all the time feared would transpire ought to they obtain this information from the states and manipulate it for these sorts of ends,” Schneidman mentioned.
