In a ruling touted Wednesday by Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones, a federal judge blocked some of President Donald Trump’s efforts to penalize states for SNAP error rates.
The move from the court comes as Virginia faces record food insecurity and legislators debated the President’s changes to the program Wednesday morning.
Oregon U.S. District Mustafa T. Kasubhai wasn't subtle when nixing part of the Trump administration's SNAP cuts for working outside of administrative norms.
"[The federal government] would have the Court view [Trump's budget's] changes to SNAP in a vacuum, ignore how Defendants have administered past changes to the SNAP program, and conceal relevant evidence contrary to their opinion," he wrote.
The suit was filed last fall, but Virginia didn't join the multi-state effort until Jones took office earlier this year. In a statement Wednesday the AG praised the ruling: “Virginians are already stretching paychecks as far as they can and while Donald Trump might not care about the impact the cost crisis is having on them, this office does."
Only moments earlier, Virginia Health Secretary Marvin Figueroa was explaining the penalty program to the Senate Finance committee at the General Assembly building.
“The error rate represents not just overpayment, but underpayments," Figueroa said. "It’s about the administration of the program, whether we have enough documentation to prove what we give out.”
Trump wants that error rate below 5%, Figueroa said Virginia’s is about 9%, slightly below the national average. Under the President's plan, Virginia would owe about $180 million for its current rate. The legislature put hundreds of millions in state funds to cover possible penalties, improve the error rate and fill in gaps made by broader cuts.
This all comes as food insecurity hits record highs, with 47% of those surveyed by the Federation of Virginia Food Banks reporting being food insecure. That's up from 10% in 2024, according to USDA. The federal agency has since said they'd stop collecting such data, calling it redundant and arguing it only served to boost SNAP enrollment.
Broader cuts and changes to the program are already being felt in the Commonwealth with about 130,000 Virginians dropped from the program in the last year.
Fairfax County lost the largest by the numbers, about 8,500 would-be beneficiaries or 14% of enrollees. But it’s Virginia’s more rural counties, Clarke, Dinwiddie, King George and others, that lost the most by percentage.
Republican Senator Mark Obenshain’s district includes Harrisonburg, which was among the top losers, with about a quarter of the city’s enrollees being knocked off the program.
“We want to make sure we protect those funds, that the Dept. of Social Services is performing its obligations and responsibilities as they’re supposed to,” Obenshain told Radio IQ after Wednesday's meeting.
During the meeting Obenshain pointed to SNAP error rate collection dating back to 1996.
"It's a problem that has been consistent for those 30 years," he said. "We have failed over 30 years to get our SNAP error rate in compliance."
Figeroua agreed with the idea of reducing Virginia's error rate but noted the current error rate reflects work done up to September 2025, before he and Governor Abigail Spanberger took office.
"The measurement period was started before we did any intervention," he said. "We should have some level of grace period to see those interventions take place."
Democratic Senator Aaron Rouse’s Virginia Beach district is also among the higher enrollee losses by percentage, about 17%. He said only nine states were meeting Trump’s error rate demand, and, to him, that speaks to a larger issue.
“There are a lot of hungry Americans out there, there are a lot of families not doing well,” he said.
While the judge's ruling pauses Trump’s penalties, an appeal is likely.
