The USDA has told states they must turn over SNAP recipients’ sensitive data between July 24 and July 30.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has told states they have one week to turn over the sensitive data on tens of millions of people who applied for federal food assistance. That includes names, Social Security numbers and addresses. And the agency also wants information about every person in those households. It appears to be part of a broader push by the Trump administration to collect and link government datasets containing personal information in new ways. NPR’s Jude Joffe-Block has been at the forefront of this story, Hi, Jude.
JUDE JOFFE-BLOCK, BYLINE: Hey, there.
SHAPIRO: Why does the USDA say it needs this data on food assistance recipients?
JOFFE-BLOCK: Well, USDA says it will use the data to check the integrity of the SNAP program, which used to be known as food stamps. And that includes applicants’ eligibility and immigration status. The agency cites one of President Trump’s executive orders that calls for, quote, “unfettered access to data from state programs that get federal funds.” And to be clear, there are already anti-fraud mechanisms in place for food aid and ways for the federal government to audit state data.
One piece of important context here is that the Trump administration is taking steps to share IRS and Medicaid data with immigration enforcement agents so they can locate people who could be subject to deportation. And just today, USDA made clear for the first time that, as part of this SNAP data collection, they want information on all household members, and that suggests one possibility is that mixed-status immigrant families’ data could be a target here.
SHAPIRO: Tell us about the reaction to this.
JOFFE-BLOCK: Well, the USDA put out a public notice describing their data collection plan, which is required by law, and the public could comment for 30 days. That period closed last night with hundreds of comments submitted. The USDA’s own analysis found that as of Monday, the comments were overwhelmingly critical. The department told NPR it reviewed those comments as they came in, but they’re forging ahead and have started gathering the data. A group of Democratic senators has slammed the data collection plan warning it would, quote, “turn a program that feeds millions of Americans into a tool of government mass surveillance.” And all that criticism was before the revelation that USDA announced today that it wants household members’ information, too, which has come as quite a surprise to many.
SHAPIRO: Yeah. Now, more than 40 million people in the U.S. get food assistance from SNAP. Have you spoken to any of them?
JOFFE-BLOCK: Well, I spoke to 20-year-old Namod Pallek. He’s a political science major at UC Berkeley. He said he couldn’t afford food and his schoolbooks without California’s SNAP program, known as CalFresh. He had to submit a lot of personal information when he applied, and now he’s having second thoughts about that because so much is unknown about the full range of data USDA will try to collect and how it could be used in the future.
NAMOD PALLEK: I got more worried about more people having access to my data and, like, causing mistakes and the possibility of, like, AI looking into my data and then having some kind of data leak.
JOFFE-BLOCK: And Pallek is actually a plaintiff in a federal lawsuit challenging the data collection and argues the USDA’s plan violates federal privacy laws. The judge in that case declined last night to intervene and postpone the data collection period. That lawsuit continues.
SHAPIRO: SNAP is really run by the states, so how are they responding?
JOFFE-BLOCK: Well, in theory, funding could be withheld from states if they don’t comply, but that July 30 deadline next week may be hard even for some states that want to cooperate. Texas, for example, said in a public comment, they needed more clarity about how to submit the data and that once they get answers, they need several more weeks to get their data in. And Democratic attorneys general from 14 states joined together to write a public comment objecting to the data collection plan. So we’ll be watching to see what those states do next and if they wind up taking this issue to court.
SHAPIRO: That is NPR’s Jude Joffe-Block. Thank you.
JOFFE-BLOCK: Thanks.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
Copyright © 2025 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
Accuracy and availability of NPR transcripts may vary. Transcript text may be revised to correct errors or match updates to audio. Audio on npr.org may be edited after its original broadcast or publication. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
