Rollins emphasizes SNAP is for working Americans

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins issued memorandums to state agencies urging them to enforce federal guidelines around work requirements and citizenship status when issuing food assistance. 

Food security advocates in Iowa say the measures do not change much for the agencies administering the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. 

Luke Elzinga, policy and advocacy director for Des Moines Area Religious Council and chair of Iowa Hunger Coalition, said the memos are more about sending a message than creating policy changes. 

“The implication is that people on SNAP are not working, and that we have a bunch of undocumented immigrants on SNAP, and neither of those are true,” Elzinga said. 

SNAP rules require that anyone ages 16-59 work at least 30 hours per week, unless they have a physical or mental limitation, are a caretaker, receiving unemployment, participating in addiction treatment or studying at a school or training program. 

Failure to comply with the work requirements could result in loss of SNAP eligibility for one month or longer. 

Further, able-bodied adults without dependents, or ABAWD, aged 18-54, have to complete additional work requirements, or else risk losing access to SNAP benefits for more than three months every three years. 

States may request waivers from the ABAWD requirements, which Rollins, as the secretary of Agriculture, has the authority to approve or deny. 

Rollins’ memorandum to state agencies asked them to “be mindful” of the law that created ABAWD requirements and its intent to “reduce dependence on public assistance programs and to support self-sufficiency.” 

The memo asks states to ensure their waiver requests apply “only to those who truly need it so that those who can work, do.” 

Elzinga said Iowa does not have any ABAWD waivers in place, so the announcement doesn’t have much impact on the state. 

In a press release about the memorandum, Rollins said states have “abused” the system by requesting work requirement waivers. 

“Today marks the start of a new era for SNAP—prioritizing work, career and technical education, and volunteering rather than idleness, excess spending, and misapplication of the law,” Rollins said in the statement. 

“Since my confirmation, I have reiterated the states are our partners, and this includes ensuring our nutrition programs are tied to putting Americans back to work.” 

Elzinga said enforcing work requirements would be effective at getting individuals to stop using the SNAP program, but not because they would be improving their overall economic well-being. 

“We should be supporting people and helping them have access to those (job training) programs, but not necessarily making them a condition of receiving food and health care,” Elzinga said.

On a local level, the Iowa Legislature and Gov. Kim Reynolds are pushing for expanded work requirements for Iowans to receive Medicaid or SNAP benefits.

Citizen status

The other memorandum instructed states to “carefully examine” their practices for verifying identity and immigration status, to ensure that “ineligible aliens” do not receive SNAP benefits. 

The benefits are only available to U.S. citizens and certain eligible “non-citizen groups” including: refugees, individuals granted asylum, entrants from specific countries like Haiti, Cuba, Iraq, Afghanistan and Micronesian islands. Non-citizen children under 18 are also eligible, as are residents with green cards, battered non-citizens and conditional entrants after meeting certain criteria. 

Elzinga said memo is a bit of a “nothing burger,” because “undocumented immigrants don’t receive SNAP.” 

“It’s not allowed by the program,” he said. “And we also know that it can be really difficult for legal immigrants who qualify for SNAP to even be able to get benefits.” 

Elzinga said the effort might have an impact by dissuading eligible immigrant families from applying for SNAP benefits, which he said agencies saw during the first Trump administration. 

“I do think this announcement could instill fear among mixed status households or even legal immigrants who qualify for SNAP,” he said, noting that folks might withdraw from the program out of fear that it would impact their immigration status.

The memo outlines processes that state agencies should follow to verify immigration status and eligibility, including the use of the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, program which was recently made available to states at no cost. 

Elzinga said this would be the only real change to the state policy, because having access to the program for free could save agencies some money when running the service. 

The memo also encourages states to use other strategies, like surveys and in-person interviews to further verify identity and status of SNAP applicants. 

“We are stewards of taxpayer dollars, and it is our duty to ensure states confirm the identity and verify the immigration status of SNAP applicants,” Rollins said in a press release. “USDA’s nutrition programs are intended to support the most vulnerable Americans. To allow those who broke our laws by entering the United States illegally to receive these benefits is outrageous.”

The U.S. Department of Agriculture press release cites a report from the Government Accountability Office that found in 2023, USDA paid about $10.5 billion in “improper” SNAP benefits. GAO listed failure to verify citizenship, identity, education, employment, finances, household size and residency as the top causes for improper payments. 

U.S. congressional leaders from Iowa introduced a bill earlier this session to similarly address the problems outlined in GAO study. 

Processing time

Rollins also sent a letter to state governors in early April, calling for improvements to SNAP application processing times. 

The program guidelines stipulate that applications are to be processed in 30 days for normal applications, but the letter said more than 30 states fail to meet that deadline. 

Iowa’s application processing timeliness was rated at 77% in 2023. Elzinga said the letter appears to be “a good thing” to help improve processing rates in Iowa and other states.

The SNAP program is also expected to be impacted by the $230 billion in cuts congressional leaders are tasked with making to the federal House Agriculture budget. Several funding programs that helped food banks purchase food have already been cut at the federal level, despite the fact that food pantries, at least in Iowa, are only seeing an increase in need. 

“No time is really a good time to be talking about SNAP cuts, but especially right now when we’re seeing this historic need … it’s just a really, I think, a really concerning time,”  Elzinga said.