States sue over USDA’s food stamp data demand : NPR
A coalition of states pursues the federal government to prevent it from collecting personal data on tens of millions of people who receive food assistance.
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Coalition of 20 states and Washington, DC announced on Monday a new trial against the United States Ministry of Agriculture after the Federal Agency told states to hand over the detailed and personal information of candidates for food aid and members of their household.
The USDA told states that they had until July 30 to hand over all candidates for the additional nutrition aid program, or SNAP, in the past five years, including names, social security numbers, birth dates and addresses. Last week, the agency expanded the scope of the information it collects to include other data points, including immigration status and information on household members.
The new federal trial, led by the Democratic Public Prosecutors of California and New York, maintains that the request of unprecedented data violates various federal laws on privacy and the constitution, according to a press release concerning the prosecution. The States ask a judge to prevent the USDA from retaining funds from states that do not put the data back.
“President Trump continues to arm private and sensitive personal information – not to eliminate fraud, but to create a culture of fear where people do not want to ask for essential services,” said California prosecutor Rob Bonta in a statement.
The legal fight on Snap data comes as the Trump administration collects and links government data to new ways for the purposes of the application of immigration. The administration takes measures to share the data from IRS and Medicaid with those responsible for the application of immigration in order to help them locate people likely to be expelled. A coalition of states has already continued to prevent the administration from sharing the data from Medicaid.
“This unprecedented request that states overthrowing SNAP data violates all kinds of state and federal confidentiality laws and more confidence between the federal government and the people it serves,” said Bonta.
The States trial is the second to challenge the USDA data collection plan. A group of SNAP recipients, an anti-chaseur group and a confidentiality organization continued weeks after the USDA announced the plan in May. This chase always takes place. In this case, the federal judge refused the complainants’ request to intervene last week to postpone the agency’s data collection deadline.
More than 40 million people receive benefits across the country each month.
States collect detailed information from candidates to determine if it is eligible for food aid. These data have always stayed with states to this request.
But the USDA argued that it needed these details to check the integrity of the Snap program to ensure that the registrants are eligible. The ministry has cited one of Trump’s decrees which calls for “unhindered access” to data from state programs that receive federal funds in order to slow down waste, fraud and abuse.
Some states had indicated that they were planning to comply with the USDA’s request, although it is not clear how many states will respect the deadline of July 30.
For example, the Texas agency, which administers Snap for the State, told the USDA during a public commentary period this month that it needed more clarity on the data collection process and needed eight to ten weeks after obtaining responses to submit the data.
