A federal judge on March 16 affirmed an earlier order blocking the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) from forcing Colorado to recertify low-income families on food stamps, or risk losing the food assistance benefits.

USDA said it sought recertification of the eligibility of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients to combat fraud.

SNAP, also known as the food stamp program, is a federal program under which USDA provides financial assistance on a monthly basis to low-income individuals and families to buy food. Benefits are loaded onto an electronic benefits card that works like a debit card and can be used at authorized retailers and grocery stores.

USDA informed Colorado in late 2025 that the state needed to reevaluate the eligibility of more than 100,000 SNAP recipients. The process involves carrying out in-person interviews in five counties to recertify recipient eligibility within a 30-day period, a task state attorneys said was impossible.

U.S. District Judge R. Brooke Jackson issued his new order on March 16, outlining the reasons for his preliminary injunction issued earlier on Jan. 28. The Jan. 28 order had not offered a rationale for the injunction and indicated details of the injunction would soon follow.

Jackson recounted in the new order that Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, received a one-page letter on Dec. 18, 2025, from USDA advising him that his state was required to participate in a pilot project.

“The letter,” Jackson wrote, was “as astonishing as it is brief.”

Without providing any specific allegations of wrongdoing, the letter says that because of nationwide benefits fraud and USDA’s multiple requests that Colorado “fulfill its administrative responsibilities,” the state was ordered to recertify the eligibility of “all SNAP households” in five of its counties within 30 days of receipt of the letter, the judge said.

In that 30-day period, the state would have to carry out in-person interviews to confirm recipients’ eligibility and remove ineligible households from the program. Colorado ordinarily recertifies SNAP recipients twice a year, but the letter directed the state to “complete roughly half a year’s work in one month, over the winter holidays, with no chance to prepare,” the judge said.

The letter said that if the state failed to participate in this pilot project, financial sanctions could be applied to the state and its continued participation in SNAP may be in question, according to the order.

The judge said USDA argued that the project was needed to deal with “a recent history of integrity concerns” in Colorado, including reports of the abuse of public benefits.

The department cited two internal reports that found several counties did not pursue administrative disqualification or prosecution in every case where a program violation was suspected, the judge said.

Jackson said in his March 16 order that the preliminary injunction is blocking the letter and the pilot project.

The pilot project “plainly violates” the law and regulations governing SNAP, and runs counter to “reasoned agency decision-making,” he said.

A USDA spokesperson told The Epoch Times the department doesn’t comment on pending litigation.

The Epoch Times reached out for comment to the office of the Colorado attorney general. No reply was received by publication time.

This article by Matthew Vadum appeared March 17, 2026, in The Epoch Times.