BALTIMORE — Maryland has joined a 20 state lawsuit against the Trump Administration over their demands for personal information of food stamp (SNAP) recipients.
The Feds argue the request is to further crackdown on over-payment and fraud, which they addressed in the newly passed "Big Beautiful Bill."
Attorney General Anthony Brown has filed dozens of lawsuits on behalf of Maryland during President Donald Trump's second term in Office.
On nearly every occasion, he and Democratic Attorneys General in more than a dozen states file in federal courts located in the Northeast or West Coast portion of the U.S., where judges often rule against the government.
This case is the latest example, as the coalition chose to sue in the Northern District of California, where every active judge was appointed by a Democratic President.
Despite SNAP being fully funded by the federal government, Brown believes the feds have no right to know who is benefiting from the program, because he says it's the States job to verify eligibility.
"Since President Trump re-entered the White House in January, public reports indicate that federal officials are amassing huge databases of personal information on Americans and using that data for undisclosed purposes, including immigration enforcement," the Attorneys General allege.
Such resistance from the states prompted Congress to add guardrails to federal welfare programs like SNAP.
For example, states now have less ability to waive work requirements for those receiving SNAP benefits.
Starting in 2028 states with payment error rates over 6 percent will be responsible for up to 15 percent of food benefit costs.
For perspective, last year Maryland had a 13.64 error rate, 8.65 percent of which were over-payments, according to the USDA.
Similar problems were noted in an October 2022 state audit finding 86,479 ineligible households collecting SNAP payments.
MORE: State audit reveals ineligible residents received millions in SNAP
That same year, WMAR-2 News reported over $1 million in SNAP & cash assistance benefits being stolen from Maryland families.
This year Maryland expects the feds to fork over about $1.7 billion in SNAP funding, in support of over 900,000 households.
Around 4,000 merchants accept consumer SNAP payments. The states worry those merchants could be negatively impacted if less people are enrolled in SNAP.
With the "Big Beautiful Bill" now the law of the land, it's estimated 170,000 in Maryland could lose SNAP benefits.
Recently Brown and company also sued Trump over the sharing of Medicaid data between the U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Homeland Security (DHS).
While there's been no ruling yet in that case, a federal judge in Washington D.C. has allowed DHS to have access to IRS information to help enforce immigration laws.
The Supreme Court in June also granted DOGE access to sensitive non-anonymized Social Security data of millions of Americans, making this newest lawsuit an uphill battle upon appeal.
Below we track Maryland's lawsuits filed against the President.
