Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes joined a multistate lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s attempts to collect a trove of personal information collected by states about food stamp recipients.
The case, filed by Democratic officials in 21 states and Washington, D.C., is the 25th lawsuit Mayes has signed challenging actions by the Trump administration.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture sent letters to states demanding they turn over personal information about Americans who have received food assistance through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program over the past five years to comply with an executive order seeking to combat alleged “waste, fraud and abuse.”
“This is the only way to eliminate ‘bureaucratic duplication and inefficiency’ and enhance ‘the Government’s ability to detect overpayments and fraud,’” according to a May 6 letter from Gina Brand, a senior policy adviser at USDA.
The program, also known as SNAP, provides food assistance to tens of millions of Americans, including nearly 900,000 Arizonans.
The states administering the program and third-party contractors collect private information in order to comply with SNAP program rules.
In the lawsuit, the Democratic officials argue that states are barred from turning that information over by SNAP’s own rules and federal privacy laws.
“On the one hand, Plaintiff States are required to keep personal information about SNAP applicants and recipients strictly confidential; both federal and state law prohibit them from disclosing personally identifying SNAP data unless strictly necessary for the administration of the program, or other limited circumstances exist."
“The Trump administration wants to use personal data as a weapon — not to fight fraud, but to intimidate vulnerable families and discourage them from seeking basic help,” Mayes said in a statement. “Arizona won’t be complicit in violating privacy laws or betraying the trust of Arizonans trying to feed their families,” according to the suit.
The plaintiffs acknowledged that rules allowing for federal oversight give USDA and other agencies some limited access to SNAP participants’ data, but they argue that does not extend to the “unfettered access” sought by the Trump administration.
The lawsuit also alleges that the Trump administration is actually seeking the data “to advance goals that have nothing to do with combating waste, fraud, or abuse in federal benefit programs.”
That includes aiding Trump’s mass deportation effort.
Non-citizens without legal status cannot receive SNAP benefits, but they can apply for benefits for their citizen children, according to the lawsuit.
“And, because non-citizen parents may legally apply for benefits for their citizen children, States’ SNAP data includes personal identifying information (“PII”) and home addresses of non-citizen parents who have lawfully sought government assistance to feed their U.S. citizen children,” the Democratic officials argue.
A USDA spokesperson told NPR the department does not comment on litigation.
States that don’t turn over that information face financial penalties that could cripple SNAP programs.
In a letter sent May 6, USDA wrote that a failure to comply with the data request “may trigger noncompliance procedures.” That could include withholding federal funding to administer SNAP programs to non-compliant states, according to the lawsuit.
“California, for example, receives roughly $1.3 billion a year to administer the program,” according to the lawsuit, which is being led by California Attorney General Rob Bonta.
In 2023, Arizona received about $61 million in federal funding to cover those administrative costs.
States are already dealing with upcoming cuts to federal SNAP funding included in the tax cut and spending plan passed by congressional Republicans, also dubbed Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill.
Historically, the federal government and states evenly split administrative costs while the federal government covered 100% of food assistance costs. However, the recent tax cut and spending package passed by Congress increased states’ share of SNAP administrative costs to 75%.
The legislation also includes penalties for states whose error rate – or how accurately states calculate eligibility – is over 6%.
Arizona’s error rate was at 8.8% in 2024.
Budget analysts at the Arizona Legislature forecasted state costs will increase by $139 million in 2028 if the error rate remains at that level, and the costs to administer the program will increase by $33 million in 2027.
