Twenty-one state attorney generals and the state of Kentucky on Monday sued the U.S. Department of Agriculture to block it from obtaining personal information of all residents who receive support from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to purchase groceries.
New York Attorney General Letitia James said she joined a lawsuit to take action to protect the privacy rights of the more than 40 million people throughout the country who rely on essential food assistance. In a lawsuit filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, James and the coalition is challenging the Trump administration’s requirement that states turn over the personal information of all residents who receive SNAP benefits.
James and the coalition argue that this highly sensitive data, which includes home addresses, Social Security numbers, recent locations, immigration statuses, and more, will likely be shared across federal agencies and used for immigration enforcement, is a violation of the law. The coalition, which sued U.S. Secretary of of Agriculture Brooke Rollins and the Department of Agriculture's Office of Inspector General, are seeking a court judgment declaring the administration’s new policy illegal and preventing enforcement.
“Families should be able to get the food assistance they need without fearing that they will be targeted by this administration,” James said in a statement. "I will not allow the SNAP benefits that millions of New Yorkers count on to be put at risk. We are suing today to stop this illegal policy and protect New Yorkers’ privacy and access to food assistance.”
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), which administers SNAP, has requested that states submit personally identifying information of all SNAP applicants and recipients since January 2020. The USDA has threatened states with potential SNAP funding cuts if they refuse to comply.
As a result of USDA’s new demand, states have been put in the position of either complying and violating the law, or protecting their residents’ personal information while jeopardizing millions of dollars in funding used to administer the SNAP program, James said.
In May 2025, approximately 1.7 million New York households, representing over 2.9 million individuals, participated in SNAP. Nearly one million of those individuals were children. While non-citizens are generally not eligible for SNAP benefits, federal law allows non-citizen parents to apply for SNAP benefits on behalf of their citizen children.
Joining James in filing the lawsuit are the attorneys general of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia, as well as the state of Kentucky.
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