Supreme Court Decides Full Snap Food Benefits Can Be Temporarily Halted.
The US Supreme Court has issued an urgent ruling that permits for now the federal government to delay billions in funding for food benefits relied on by millions of low-income Americans.
Administration officials appealed to the Supreme Court after a lower court ordered that the SNAP program, also known as food aid, should be distributed in full to recipients by Friday.
The programme has been caught in uncertainty by the ongoing federal government shutdown, with the government claiming it could only pay for part of it.
Friday's ruling means $4bn can be temporarily withheld until more court proceedings.
Programme Impact
The Snap programme is used by tens of millions of U.S. citizens - approximately 12% - and requires almost £6.9bn a month.
On Thursday, a federal magistrate, the presiding judge, accused the Trump administration of withholding food aid "due to political motives" and said that without the aid "16 million children are in danger of facing hunger".
The judge mandated the administration to fund the assistance in full.
Court Proceedings
The Thursday ruling followed another that ordered the government to use contingency funds to at least partly pay for the programme for November.
This court battle was spurred after the USDA, which manages the Snap programme, announced benefits would be stopped in the fall due to the lack of funding over the budget crisis.
Before the Supreme Court stepped in, the USDA said it was attempting to follow with the multiple rulings and was making efforts to doll out the complete amount.
Supreme Court Action
High Court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson granted the stay on Friday evening, called an administrative stay, pausing the previous decision for two days while federal attorneys pursue an appeal.
The row over food aid funding has become among the most contentious of what is now the lengthiest budget standoff in American history.
Broader Impact
Federal employees have been unpaid for over 30 days and flight operations has been thrown into chaos as Democratic and Republican lawmakers cannot reach a compromise to pass a budget.
Some states have used their own financial reserves to keep food benefits flowing, which are worth around six dollars to recipients via pre-loaded debit cards which can be used in food markets.
But some states have said they are cannot cover the funding which has been lost from the federal government.
