The Trump administration wants Oregon to hand over personal information from people receiving food stamps by as soon as Thursday.

Officials with the Trump administration say they’re collecting the information to rein in fraud and government waste, but anti-hunger groups and some elected officials say fraud is rare, and that the government has a more ulterior motive.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is requiring state agencies that administer the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, SNAP, informally known as food stamps, to turn over sensitive personal information.

That request seeks the names, addresses, dates of birth and Social Security numbers belonging to people who receive or have applied to receive SNAP benefits in the last three years.

Anti-hunger groups and some Democratic elected officials have expressed concerns over the unprecedented request, saying the plan ignores people’s right to privacy laws.

More than 700,000 people in Oregon receive SNAP benefits, with an average monthly payment of about $300. A spokesperson for Oregon’s Department of Human Services told OPB it’s reviewing USDA’s request, but did not say whether it plans to comply with the federal agency.

The USDA first sent out a memo to state agencies that administer the program in May, saying it was collecting SNAP data to comply with President Donald Trump’s executive order to stop waste, fraud and government abuse, and create a so-called National SNAP Information Database to “strengthen SNAP and government program integrity.”

The federal agency also claims it wants to ensure immigrants without legal status aren’t receiving public benefits. People without legal status in the United States have never been eligible to apply for public benefit programs like SNAP, although people who meet certain criteria, such as those with refugee or asylum status, can be eligible.

The USDA, however, quickly paused its initial efforts to collect this data after a group of people enrolled in SNAP, along with anti-hunger and privacy groups, sued the agency, arguing the request was unlawful.

Now, the administration is renewing that effort. And groups are once again pushing back against what they say is government overreach. That’s because state and federal agencies already have systems to identify fraud that comply with federal privacy laws, said Alex Aghdaei, the SNAP policy analyst and outreach coordinator at nonprofit Partners for a Hunger-Free Oregon.

“Under existing fraud accountability programs, the state will share anonymized data. There’s no reason why the federal government needs to know your home address or your social security number to know whether or not you can access SNAP,” Aghdaei said. “That’s not pertinent information and it doesn’t need to be personally identifiable. That’s what makes this so egregious.”

Instead, Aghdaei noted, the federal government is looking to collect information to share across other federal agencies, including law enforcement. Aghdaei pointed to a recent agreement the Trump administration made to share Medicaid personal information with U.S. Customs and Immigration enforcement officials.

“All of this combines to an attempt by the federal government to rein in their power and be able to exercise law enforcement and immigration enforcement anywhere, anytime against anyone,” Aghdaei said.

Just last week, Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley and Sen. Ron Wyden joined 11 other Democratic Congressional Senators sharing their concerns over the agency’s efforts. In a letter directed at USDA Sec. Brooke Rollins, the senators asked the agency to cease its efforts.

“This policy would turn a program that feeds millions of Americans into a tool of government mass surveillance,” the letter read. “USDA is trying to grant itself endless authority to share Americans’ private information is a serious violation of government norms.”

Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield also joined several other state attorney generals urging the USDA to withdraw or change its request, saying the effort runs afoul of privacy rights laws, including the federal Privacy Act of 1974.

The same groups that sued the federal government to challenge the data request in May are once again filing a motion to block the USDA’s most recent effort, according to a report from NPR.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2025/07/22/oregon-personal-food-stamp-data-trump-administration/