Attorney General Ellison once again sues to protect SNAP recipients from going hungry
Lawsuit challenges USDA demand that Minnesota verify SNAP eligibility of nearly 200,000 Minnesotans in person within 30 days or lose funding
Minnesota’s SNAP payment-error rates are better than 33 other states and territories— yet Trump Administration is targeting Minnesota with this impossible demand that Congress actually prohibited
‘Once again, the Trump Administration is threatening to let the needy go hungry’
December 23, 2025 (SAINT PAUL) — Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison filed a lawsuit today on behalf of the State of Minnesota against the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), challenging its recent demand from USDA that within 30 days, Minnesota interview in person more than 100,000 households — constituting approximately 191,000 people — that receive SNAP benefits to verify their eligibility for the program. The Trump administration threatened to cut off Minnesota’s SNAP funding and disqualify it from SNAP altogether unless Minnesota complies with the impossible demands, which are prohibited under federal law.
On December 16, 2025, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins sent a letter to Minnesota officials purporting to require Minnesota to “recertify” the eligibility of more than 100,000 SNAP households in four Minnesota counties — Hennepin, Ramsey, Washington, and Wright — within 30 days from the receipt of the letter, or by January 15, 2026. Those four counties contain 45% of all SNAP households in Minnesota. She further demanded that Minnesota conduct in-person interviews with each of those households as part of the recertification process. Secretary Rollins threatened to take severe punitive actions against Minnesota if it failed to comply, including disqualifying Minnesota from SNAP.
“It’s bad enough that the USDA has no lawful authority to impose these impossible demands on Minnesota,” Attorney General Ellison said. “But once again, the Trump Administration is threatening to let the needy go hungry. Donald Trump is doing whatever he can to keep vulnerable people hungry and scheming new ways to punish the states that want to keep them fed.”
In Minnesota, SNAP households are recertified regularly. Conducting in-person interviews and recertifications of more than 100,000 households within 30 days would be utterly impossible, even if the Trump administration had provided advance notice and even if Minnesota and its county partners redirected all available resources to the effort.
Even attempting to complete this mammoth process in the timeframe provided would cause harm to county residents who need assistance with other programs or service — and pull resources from fraud-investigation programs that are better suited to protect the integrity of SNAP.
According to the USDA’s own data, Minnesota’s payment error rate in 2024 was two percentage points lower than the national average and lower than the error rates of 33 other states and territories. Yet USDA is targeting only Minnesota and Colorado to recertify participants in this hasty, impossible manner.
The demand from USDA is part of an ongoing, misguided, and unlawful effort by the federal government to advance Donald Trump’s and the Trump Administration’s personal and political grievances with Minnesota and its elected officials.
USDA’s latest action follows attempts by the Trump administration to use SNAP funding as a weapon during the government shutdown, attempt to cut SNAP funding from lawful residents of the United States, and make unlawful demands for SNAP recipients’ sensitive data — all of which Attorney General Ellison successfully challenged in court.
In the new lawsuit, Attorney General Ellison argues that USDA’s demand is in clear violation of several aspects of federal law, including the Food and Nutrition Act and the Administrative Procedure Act.
In particular, executive agencies do not have authority to impose conditions on states beyond what Congress originally established for the receipt of SNAP funds. The Food and Nutrition Act of 2008 does not condition funding on a state’s participation in unilateral pilot projects announced without notice. In fact, the Food and Nutrition Act prohibits States from requiring ”households to report en masse for an in-office interview,” and prohibits most in-home interviews as well.
Federal law also prohibits agencies from taking actions that are arbitrary and capricious — yet USDA’s reasons for imposing the “pilot project” upon Minnesota are unsupported, irrational pretexts, and the proposed project would not remedy the recipient fraud it supposedly targets. Rather, it would instead impose new hardships on recipients, Minnesota counties, and the State of Minnesota.
Attorney General Ellison seeks to have USDA’s threatened actions declared unlawful and seeks injunctive relief blocking USDA from implementing them.
