Renuka Rayasam
CLARKSTON, Ga. — After fleeing the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo, Antoinette landed within the Atlanta space final November and commenced to seek out her footing with federal assist.
Separated from her grownup youngsters and grieving her husband’s dying within the conflict, she began a job packing containers in a warehouse, making simply sufficient to cowl lease for her personal house and payments.
Antoinette has been counting on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, previously often called meals stamps, for her weekly grocery journeys.
But now, simply as life is beginning to stabilize, she must cope with a brand new setback.
President Donald Trump’s large finances regulation, which Republicans name the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, slashes $187 billion — or practically 20% — from the federal finances for SNAP by way of 2034. And separate from any temporary SNAP stoppages due to the federal shutdown, the regulation cuts off entry utterly for refugees and different immigrant teams within the nation lawfully. The change was slated to take impact instantly when the regulation was signed in July, however states are nonetheless awaiting federal steerage on when to cease or section it out.
For Antoinette, 51, who didn’t need her final title used for concern of deportation and sure persecution in her native nation, the lack of meals assist is dire.
“I would not have the means to buy food,” she stated in French by way of a translator. “How am I going to manage?”
Throughout its historical past, the U.S. has admitted into the nation refugees like Antoinette, individuals who have been persecuted, or concern persecution, of their homelands because of race, faith, nationality, political beliefs, or membership in a specific social group. These authorized immigrants sometimes face an in-depth vetting course of that may begin years earlier than they set foot on U.S. soil.
Once they arrive — typically with little or no means — the federal authorities supplies assets comparable to monetary help, Medicaid, and SNAP, outreach that has sometimes garnered bipartisan assist. Now the Trump administration has pulled again the nation’s decades-long assist for refugee communities.
The finances regulation, which funds a number of of the president’s priorities, together with tax cuts to rich Americans and border safety, revokes refugees’ entry to Medicaid, the state-federal medical health insurance program for folks with low incomes or disabilities, beginning in October 2026.
But one of many first provisions to take impact beneath the regulation removes SNAP eligibility for many refugees, asylum seekers, trafficking and home violence victims, and different authorized immigrants. About 90,000 folks will lose SNAP in a mean month because of the brand new restrictions narrowing which noncitizens can entry this system, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
“It doesn’t get much more basic than food,” stated Matthew Soerens, vice chairman of advocacy and coverage at World Relief, a Christian humanitarian group that helps U.S. refugees.
“Our government invited these people to rebuild their lives in this country with minimum support,” Soerens stated. “Taking food away from them is wrong.”
Not Just a Handout
The White House and officers on the United States Department of Agriculture didn’t reply to emails about assist for the supply that ends SNAP for refugees within the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
But Steven Camarota, director of analysis for the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for lowered ranges of immigration to the U.S., stated cuts to SNAP eligibility are affordable as a result of foreign-born folks and their younger youngsters disproportionately use public advantages.
Still, Camarota stated, the refugee inhabitants is totally different from different immigrant teams. “I don’t know that this would be the population I would start with,” Camarota stated. “It’s a relatively small population of people that we generally accept have a lot of need.”
Federal, state, and native spending on refugees and asylum seekers, together with meals, well being care, schooling, and different bills, totaled $457.2 billion from 2005 to 2019, in accordance with a February 2024 report from the Department of Health and Human Services. During that point, 21% of refugees and asylum seekers obtained SNAP advantages, in contrast with 15% of all U.S. residents.
In addition to the finances regulation’s SNAP adjustments, financial assistance given to folks coming into the U.S. by the Office of Refugee Resettlement, part of HHS, has been minimize from one yr to 4 months.
The HHS report additionally discovered that regardless of the preliminary prices of caring for refugees and asylees, this neighborhood contributed $123.8 billion extra to federal, state, and native governments by way of taxes than they obtained in public advantages over the 15 years.
It’s within the nation’s finest curiosity to proceed to assist them, stated Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of Global Refuge, a nonprofit refugee resettlement company.
“This is not what we should think about as a handout,” she stated. “We know that when we support them initially, they go on to not just survive but thrive.”
Food Is Medicine
Food insecurity can have lifelong bodily and psychological well being penalties for individuals who have already confronted years of instability earlier than coming to the U.S., stated Andrew Kim, co-founder of Ethnē Health, a neighborhood well being clinic in Clarkston, an Atlanta suburb that’s residence to 1000’s of refugees.
Noncitizens affected by the brand new regulation would have obtained, on common, $210 a month throughout the subsequent decade, in accordance with the CBO. Without SNAP funds, many refugees and their households would possibly skip meals and change to lower-quality, cheap choices, resulting in continual well being considerations comparable to weight problems and insulin resistance, and probably worsening already critical psychological well being circumstances, he stated.
After her husband was killed within the Democratic Republic of Congo, Antoinette stated, she grew to become separated from all seven of her youngsters. The youngest is nineteen. She nonetheless isn’t positive the place they’re. She misses them however is decided to construct a brand new life for herself. For her, assets like SNAP are crucial.
From the convention room of New American Pathways, the nonprofit that helped her enroll in advantages, Antoinette stared straight forward, stone-faced, when requested about how the cuts would have an effect on her.
Will she store much less? Will she eat fewer vegetables and fruit, and fewer meat? Will she skip meals?
“Oui,” she replied to every query, utilizing the French for “yes.”
Since arriving within the U.S. final yr from Ethiopia together with his spouse and two teen daughters, Lukas, 61, has been addressing diabetes-related problems, comparable to blurry imaginative and prescient, complications, and hassle sleeping. SNAP advantages permit him and his household to afford contemporary greens like spinach and broccoli, in accordance with Lilly Tenaw, the nurse practitioner who treats Lukas and helped translate his interview.
His blood sugar is now at a safer degree, he stated proudly after a category at Mosaic Health Center, a neighborhood clinic in Clarkston, the place he discovered to make lentil soup and stability his food regimen.
“The assistance gives us hope and encourages us to see life in a positive way,” he stated in Amharic by way of a translator. Lukas needed to make use of solely his household title as a result of he had been jailed and confronted persecution in Ethiopia, and now worries about jeopardizing his means to get everlasting residency within the U.S.
Hunger and poor diet can decrease productiveness and make it exhausting for folks to seek out and preserve jobs, stated Valerie Lacarte, a senior coverage analyst on the Migration Policy Institute.
“It could affect the labor market,” she stated. “It’s bleak.”
More SNAP Cuts To Come
While the Trump administration ended SNAP for refugees efficient instantly, the change has created uncertainty for individuals who present help.
State officers in Texas and California, which obtain essentially the most refugees amongst states, and in Georgia instructed KFF Health News that the USDA, which runs this system, has but to challenge steerage on whether or not they need to cease offering SNAP on a particular date or section it out.
And it’s not simply refugees who’re affected.
Nearly 42 million folks obtain SNAP advantages, according to the USDA. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that, throughout the subsequent decade, greater than 3 million folks will lose month-to-month meals {dollars} due to deliberate adjustments — comparable to an extension of labor necessities to extra folks and a shift in prices from the federal authorities to the states.
In September, the administration ended a key report that regularly measured food insecurity amongst all U.S. households, making it more durable to evaluate the toll of the SNAP cuts.
The USDA additionally posted on its website that no advantages could be issued for anybody beginning Nov. 1 due to the federal shutdown, blaming Senate Democrats. The Trump administration has refused to launch emergency funding — as previous administrations have executed throughout shutdowns — in order that states can proceed issuing advantages whereas congressional leaders work out a finances deal. A coalition of attorneys basic and governors from 25 states and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit on Oct. 28 contesting the administration’s resolution.
Cuts to SNAP will ripple by way of native grocery shops and farms, stretching the assets of charity organizations and native governments, stated Ted Terry, a DeKalb County commissioner and former mayor of Clarkston.
“It’s just the whole ecosystem that has been in place for 40 years completely being disrupted,” he stated.
Muzhda Oriakhil, senior neighborhood engagement supervisor at Friends of Refugees, an Atlanta-area nonprofit that helps refugees resettle, stated her group and others are scrambling to offer momentary meals help for refugee households. But charity organizations, meals banks, and different nonprofit teams can not make up for the lack of billions of federal {dollars} that assist households pay for meals.
“A lot of families, they may starve,” she stated.
