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Recent changes to federal food aid mean some immigrants have been cut off from grocery assistance payments.
Refugees, asylum seekers and human trafficking survivors without a green card are among the noncitizen groups who are no longer eligible for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, under President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.”
The restrictions technically went into effect last year, when Congress and President Trump approved the legislation in July. But states have been implementing the changes on different timelines over the past handful of months.
Last year, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said the eligibility changes aim to reduce “fraud and waste” in the program.
“The bill holds states accountable for their error rates, strengthens work requirements, and prevents illegal aliens from receiving SNAP,” Rollins said in a July press release.
But SNAP has never been available to people living in the country without legal permission. The latest USDA data shows about 96% of the program’s shoppers are U.S. citizens, and nearly 90% of those recipients are U.S.-born citizens.
There’s already a heavy vetting process to enter the country as a refugee or someone seeking asylum and get approved for SNAP, said Joseph Llobrera, the senior director of the food research team at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
“So this is only hurting people who are highly documented, if you think about it,” Llobrera said. “They've gone through that process of demonstrating that they are here for humanitarian protections.”
The Congressional Budget Office estimated last year that as many as 90,000 people could lose SNAP eligibility in an average month because of this provision. Those people would have received about $210 monthly from 2026 to 2034, according to the estimate.
Many states – including Oklahoma, Missouri, Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska – put the new rules into place last fall. The policies apply at a household’s recertification period.
In other states, including Minnesota, the changes have started to take effect in recent weeks, after a federal judge gave states more time to comply. The restrictions begin April 1 in Illinois, according to the Illinois Department of Human Services website.
‘Pulling the rug’
The U.S. has offered SNAP benefits to refugees and people granted asylum for years, but now they can’t access the aid until obtaining a green card for lawful permanent residency.
That process takes at least one year, said Julia Gelatt, the associate director of the national Migration Policy Institute’s U.S. Immigration Policy Program.
“However, there can be processing delays, and some refugees and asylees may not be prepared to apply right away or have the assistance that they need to do so,” Gelatt said.
Generally, people with a green card in the U.S. must wait five years before they can get food benefits, but the new law waives that rule for refugees and asylum seekers.
She said the U.S. refugee resettlement program has focused on helping people find jobs and become self-sufficient so they don’t need assistance. Stripping SNAP access, Gelatt said, turns away from the country’s commitment to providing support.
“Taking away their food stamp access during their first year in the United States is really pulling the rug out from under their ability to find their footing in the United States, and get settled and work on building that self-sufficiency,” Gelatt said. “That is their goal for themselves and is the U.S. government's goal for refugees as well.”
At the same time, refugees and asylees are also losing access to other benefits, like Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program. States have shared public benefits data with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for enforcement purposes.
There’s also a proposed federal public charge rule that would allow officials to consider an immigrant’s use of benefits when determining continued legal status. And several state lawmakers, including in Missouri and Oklahoma, have introduced bills that would increase reporting for immigrants who apply for food assistance in those states.
“I think there are a lot of factors right now that are making immigrant families scared to access benefits,” Gelatt said.
The restrictions come on top of other large changes to SNAP – including expanded work requirements and an upcoming shift of millions of dollars in costs to states. Llobera, with the Center on Budget Policy Priorities, said states have had very little time to make adjustments to their systems.
“We're starting to see signs that new hurdles are being put up that are making access to the program harder,” Llobera said.
A steady impact
In Iowa, SNAP enrollment has fallen about 6% since last summer, said Luke Elzinga with the Des Moines Area Religious Council’s Food Pantry Network.
“We don't have the numbers of, like, here's why… But obviously, the refugee and the immigration piece is a part of that,” Elzinga said. ”That is leading to declining enrollment.”
He expects this decline will continue, and more people will turn to food pantries to get enough to eat. The Des Moines Area Religious Council is working with people in central Iowa to connect refugees and other immigrants who have lost SNAP benefits with resources.
The group also lobbied against an Iowa bill earlier this year that would have limited immigrant eligibility for the Women, Infants and Children program, which provides food assistance to pregnant mothers and kids. The legislation failed to advance.
Elzinga said with all of the changes in recent months to SNAP on the state and federal level, there is not much left to cut. He said SNAP enrollment in Iowa is at an 18-year-low.
“We have food banks and food pantries that are continuing to face record-breaking need and so, what's the end game?” Elzinga said. “That's what I really struggle with and I don't have the answer to that. But it just feels like we are headed in a very troubling direction.”
This story was produced in partnership with Harvest Public Media, a collaboration of public media newsrooms in the Midwest and Great Plains. It reports on food systems, agriculture and rural issues.
