USDA wants states to share sensitive food stamp data

The sweeping and uecedented request comes as the Trump administration ramps up the collection and consolidation of Americans’ sensitive data, and as that data has been used to make misleading claims about people in the U.S. illegally accessing public benefits and committing fraud, and to build a greater capacity to deport them.

In 2024, SNAP served an average of 42 million people each month, according to the Department of Agriculture, at a cost of $100 billion. Only some categories of lawfully present noncitizens are eligible to receive SNAP benefits, and those without legal status can never qualify. However, a noncitizen parent without legal status may apply for the assistance on behalf of their children who are U.S. citizens.

The latest data demands are “absolutely alarming,” and “reckless” and likely violate the Privacy Act and other statutes, said John Davisson, senior counsel and director of litigation at the noofit Electronic Privacy Information Center. He and other advocates warn the data could be used to enable deportation and mass surveillance efforts and would do little to address improper payments.

“It is an uecedented extension of the administration’s campaign to consolidate personal data,” Davisson said.

USDA’s unusual data request

SNAP, formerly known as food stamps, is a federal program. Each state administers the program and enrolls participants based on eligibility determined by Congress. While the USDA and its Office of Inspector General can audit state SNAP programs, participants’ personal data typically remains under the state’s control.

In March, the USDA’s Office of Inspector General notified California, Florida, New York and Texas of inspections of their SNAP programs to see if the states were improperly using administrative funds to pay out benefits, the emails show.

That ultimately led to a request for detailed sensitive data — including citizenship status and addresses — of all SNAP participants in the previous year from at least one of the states.

Instead, the request prioritized other data fields, including name, date of birth, address, contact information, Social Security number, citizenship status and information about household members, the emails show.

At an initial joint video conference, the states learned the inspections had been requested by Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, according to an official who attended the meeting but was not authorized to discuss the matter. Trump fired existing inspectors general across the federal government when he took office, including at the USDA where a new permanent leader of the office has yet to be confirmed.

Earlier this week, the USDA escalated its quest for data further.

The letter said USDA is asking private contractors that process SNAP payments for states to turn over that data, and will use it to “ensure program integrity, including by verifying the eligibility of benefit recipients.” The directive comes as Republican lawmakers in Congress are proposing deep cuts to the food assistance program that would reduce the number of people who participate in it.

DOGE’s role

The May 6 letter cited President Donald Trump’s March 20 executive order, “Stopping Waste, Fraud, and Abuse by Eliminating Information Silos,” which calls on agencies to ensure the federal government “has unfettered access to comprehensive data from all state programs that receive federal funding “including from “third-party databases” in order to identify fraud and overpayments.

Wired, the Washington Post and CNN have reported that DOGE is also combining sensitive data from across agencies, including Social Security Administration, Department of Homeland Security and the Internal Revenue Service, to create a data tool that can help the federal government track and arrest immigrants they want to remove.

More than a dozen federal lawsuits allege DOGE staffers have been illegally granted permission to view databases with personal and financial information the government maintains, and multiple federal judges have expressed concern about what information DOGE has accessed and why. Late last month, DHS announced a DOGE-led overhaul of its Systematic Alien Verification Entitlements (SAVE) database, making the system free for state and local governments to use and promising a “single, reliable source for verifying non-citizen status nationwide.”

Davisson, the privacy attorney, said the SNAP data being requested could be used to make exaggerated allegations of fraud, and that combining the information with other DOGE-obtained data could be used for immigration enforcement efforts.

“What they’re building is a surveillance weapon and it can be put to all sorts of adverse uses in the future,” said Davisson.

“All personally identifiable information will comply with all privacy laws and regulations and will follow responsible data handling requirements,” the email said.

Fraud and abuse with SNAP benefits are rare

After Trump issued an executive order in February aimed at ensuring immigrants without legal status are not receiving federal benefits, Agriculture Secretary Rollins made combatting alleged mispayments to ineligible immigrants a focus.

“The days in which taxpayer dollars are used to subsidize illegal immigration are over,” Rollins said in a February press release.

In fiscal year 2023 about 11% of SNAP benefits distributed were considered improper over- or underpayments. Still, even fewer — about 1% of those — were attributed to state-level issues related to determining citizenship eligibility, according to USDA’s own data.

Most of the improper payments in 2022 were due to unintentional mistakes by state workers or households, rather than intentional fraud, according to an analysis of the data by the left-leaning Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.

Only 50% of eligible noncitizens (which includes refugees and green card holders) and 59% of eligible children living with noncitizen adults participated in SNAP in 2022, according to a USDA report. Overall, advocates said participation among those who are entitled to receive this benefit is low due to fears that it may have a negative impact on immigration proceedings.

Even though immigrants without legal status are not eligible to receive SNAP or other federal benefits, SNAP data does include the names and addresses of people who could be subject to deportation now or in the future, or who share a household with people who could be.

Some legal immigrants who receive SNAP benefits may lose their legal status in the future given that the administration is trying to reverse Biden-era immigration programs that granted hundreds of thousands of people the ability to live and work in the U.S.

For years, advocates and state agencies have tried to reassure immigrant families that it is safe for them to sign up for assistance if they met the eligibility requirements.

“People seeking services need to know that their information will be used only to administer the program — and won’t put them or their family members at risk,” said Tanya Broder, an attorney with the National Immigration Law Center.

“But the federal government’s demand for ‘unfettered’ access to sensitive data across multiple agencies, and its aggressive pursuit of immigrants, raise serious privacy concerns and the potential that information will be weaponized against people who would go hungry without assistance.”

On an FAQ page to sign up for food assistance from California, the site currently says the state will not report applicants’ immigration status to authorities and information is used only to determine eligibility.

“Authorities cannot use this information to deport you unless there is a criminal violation,” the state website says.

Esther Reyes with Protecting Immigrant Families, a coalition of 700 groups across the country that help eligible immigrants access services, is urging states to check with their congressional delegations about whether the data requests are legal before responding.

As for people who may feel fearful about enrolling in SNAP given concerns over data, Reyes said, “We really encourage families and communities to talk to enrollment workers and the people that they trust before acting on that fear.”

Have information you want to share about SNAP, DOGE access to government databases and immigration? Reach out to these authors through encrypted communication on Signal. Stephen Fowler is at stphnfwlr.25, Jude Joffe-Block is at JudeJB.10 and Ximena Bustillo is at ximenabustillo.77. Please use a nonwork device.