Governors and attorneys general from Pennsylvania and 21 other jurisdictions say they want explicit safeguards related to immigration enforcement, artificial intelligence and more before getting involved in the federal government’s push for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) data.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture says the project will help mitigate SNAP fraud, waste and abuse. Opponents fear the resulting database will lack appropriate safeguards and support other endeavors — including immigration enforcement, as with some of the Trump administration’s other data expansion efforts.
In a 16-page letter provided to the Pennsylvania Capital-Star, lawyers for the states laid out dozens of questions about and aspects of the initiative – including cost-sharing, privacy, security and bureaucratic redundancy – that they want the USDA to address.
The document comes as part of a lawsuit filed earlier this year as 21 states and Washington, D.C., declined to share the information as requested by USDA. That includes SNAP applicant and recipients’ names, addresses, social security numbers and immigration and marital statuses dating back to Jan. 1, 2020.
Twenty-eight states and Guam have since started sharing the data, according to the USDA.
Recently, the Trump administration told the other states and D.C. that they could lose federal funding to help pay to administer SNAP if they don’t opt into the data collection initiative before Christmas Eve, and asked for detailed justifications by Monday for continuing to abstain.
But the federal government can’t yank SNAP funding due to the preliminary injunction in the case, attorneys for the plaintiff jurisdictions argue in their Dec. 8 letter.
They also made demands and raised questions they say need responses – preferably, by Dec. 15 – before they can move forward.
The plaintiffs want the USDA to detail its artificial intelligence policy and confirm restrictions on data access by other federal agencies – in particular, that Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) won’t use it for immigration enforcement.
And they want to know what will be achieved by the new data sharing initiative that isn’t already happening through existing SNAP oversight and data-sharing and analysis. That includes:
- the National Accuracy Clearinghouse (NAC) to identify duplicate SNAP enrollment
- Electronic Disqualified Recipient Systems to flag applicants previously disqualified for fraud
- SNAP quality control systems that (among other things) establish error rates
- Electronic benefits transfer (EBT) fraud monitoring that entails providing daily transaction data to USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service
- SAVE (Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements) program to verify immigration status
They also say protocols for those existing programs are more detailed and stringent than the new one and could serve as models. That includes:
- Restricting who can access data and permissible uses to directly related to SNAP administration and enforcement
- Initially sharing redacted and/or aggregated data and then providing individual-level case details as warranted in response to requests from federal officials –and purging it from federal records shortly thereafter.
And they’ve asked USDA to explain how artificial intelligence will be utilized and related privacy safeguards.
An agency spokesperson said in an email USDA doesn’t comment on ongoing litigation.
It costs more than $500 million per year to administer SNAP benefits in Pennsylvania. The state and federal government have been splitting the bill. But that’s set to change next year, when the commonwealth will cover 75 percent – leaving $130 million in federal funding for administration hanging in the balance.
About two million people in Pennsylvania and 40 million others nationally receive SNAP benefits, according to the latest data available from USDA.
