Attorney General Ellison wins lawsuit against Trump Administration's illegal attempt to cut legal residents off SNAP, penalize states for not doing so

Coalition of 23 AGs wins motion for summary judgment in November 2025 lawsuit: court rules lawful permanent residents remain eligible for food assistance and states cannot be fined for not meeting a retroactive deadline for cutting them off SNAP

September 18, 2026 (SAINT PAUL) —  Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced that a federal court in Oregon today permanently blocked the Trump administration from illegally cutting off Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits to lawful permanent residents and from penalizing Minnesota and other states with steep fines over a retroactive deadline the Administration illegally set to force states to do so. In today’s ruling, which resolves a lawsuit that Attorney General Ellison and a coalition of 23 attorneys general filed in November 2025, the court sided with Attorney General Ellison and the coalition on every claim, striking down both the Trump Administration’s guidance that would have restricted food assistance for lawful permanent residents, which had no basis in law, along with the retroactive deadline it imposed on states for making that change and the steep fines the deadline would have triggered.

“No one should be surprised, but everyone should be outraged, that the Trump Administration tried once again to break the law to cut off food assistance to legal U.S. residents,” Attorney General Ellison said. “I never thought I’d have to go to court to stop an American president from illegally stripping food benefits for hungry families, then penalize Minnesota for not going along with his illegal scheme — but when Donald Trump did both those things, I had no choice but to take him to court. I’m pleased the court saw right through the illegality of this scheme and permanently blocked it.”

In November 2025, Attorney General Ellison and a coalition of 23 attorneys general sued the Trump administration after it moved illegally to cut off SNAP benefits for tens of thousands of lawful permanent residents and set a retroactive deadline for the change that put states at risk of paying hundreds of millions of dollars in penalties. In December 2025, Attorney General Ellison won a preliminary injunction blocking both those changes for the duration of their litigation.

The Trump Administration later reversed its position on eligibility for lawful permanent residents but continued to argue that states owed fines for missing a "grace period" that, in practice, had already expired before the administration finished issuing guidance on the changes.

In today’s ruling, the court found that the administration's deadline was unlawful and arbitrary, and that the administration's guidance improperly excluded certain lawful permanent residents, including former refugees and people granted asylum, from food assistance that they are legally entitled to receive. In addition, the court found that the administration’s deadline was unlawful as it related to other changes to SNAP eligibility calculations from the 2025 Republican budget bill.

The decision makes clear that states cannot be penalized under the unlawful deadline the administration tried to impose, and that the standard five-year waiting period for SNAP does not apply to lawful permanent residents who were previously refugees, asylees, or other humanitarian immigrants.

Joining Attorney General Ellison in this lawsuit, which was led by the attorneys general of New York and Oregon, are the attorneys general of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia.