Ankara: The US Agriculture Department directed states Sunday to "immediately" reverse any steps taken to issue full food assistance benefits for November, saying such payments were "unauthorized."

According to Anadolu Agency, in a memorandum updating guidance on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefit issuance, Deputy Under Secretary Patrick A. Penn instructed states to undo full benefit payments and continue processing partial issuances instead. "States must immediately undo any steps taken to issue full SNAP benefits for November 2025," Penn wrote in the memo.

The directive follows the Supreme Court's decision to grant the agency an administrative stay on orders from a Rhode Island federal court, which had mandated full benefit issuance. Penn cautioned that noncompliance "may result in USDA taking various actions, including cancellation of the Federal share of State administrative costs and holding States liable for any overissuances."

The memo specifies that states must continue to process and load partial issuances and refrain from transmitting full benefit files to processors. This directive comes amid ongoing chaos and confusion during the longest federal government shutdown in US history, when Trump threatened to withhold SNAP benefits, citing the government's $5 billion contingency fund as unusable during the government closure.

The Trump administration later agreed to pay partial SNAP benefits, commonly known as food stamps, until the shutdown concluded but warned that these payments might take weeks to be delivered. The government announced it would utilize $4.65 billion in contingency funds to cover about 65% of eligible households' benefits, declining to use additional funding reserved for child nutrition programs.