The government shutdown is about to get even scarier for the most vulnerable of Americans. Reportedly, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, better known as food stamps, might be delayed in February.
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According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, “About 15 million households, which include about 30 million people, could experience a gap between monthly SNAP payments of more than 40 days. More than 4 million low-income households, including 8 million people, could experience a gap of more than 50 days.”
What’s even more horrific is that if the government reopens to “provide full March SNAP benefits on time, the much longer than usual gap between benefit receipt for February and March will cause some households whose budgets already are extremely tight to face heightened difficulties affording food, as they await their March benefits.”
Clearly, Trump does not care and his only focus is his racist border wall, which has resulted in the longest government shutdown in our nation’s history. Trump has no ability to negotiate in any capacity and has even threatened the government could be shut down “months or even years.”
Fortunately, some people are calling him out. Texas Rep. Will Hurd, the only Black Republican in Congress, on Friday suggested in two different ways that a border wall wouldn’t do much to deter illegal immigration and poked a hole in the president’s shaky assertion that there was an immigration crisis.
“Building a wall from sea to shining sea is the most expensive and least effective way to do border security,” Hurd told CBS, “We should be using technology. DHS, Department of Homeland Security, has new programs they’re trying to implement but guess what? You can’t implement them because the government is shut down. … Let’s talk about the Secure Fence Act that everybody passed, let’s double down on technology along the border.”
Hurd also told Rolling Stone the immigration crisis at the border is “a myth.” He added, “That’s why we’ll continue to talk about how we solve this problem, operate within the Secure Fence Act, double down on our ports of entry, because that’s where most of the illegal drugs come in, that’s where most people are surrendering. We’ll use technology and address root causes in Mexico with a Marshall Plan for Central America. You do those things, put that together, it’s a big package, but it’s also what is needed in order to make sure our country is safe.”
Our thoughts are with all the families affected by Trump’s shutdown.
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