State Rep. Barbara Hernandez’s Legislation Combatting Trump Administration’s Attack on Food Stamps Now Law

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – State Rep. Barbara Hernandez, D-Aurora, is fighting back against Donald Trump’s attempts to cut resources for struggling families, enacting a new law that will ensure families maintain access to the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP).

“Donald Trump is, as usual, attacking the rights of the working class to distract from his train wreck of an administration,” Hernandez said. “This man, who has never worked a hard day in his life, is trying to force absurd policy restrictions on benefits programs that are keeping countless people across the state from going hungry. The rules he has proposed will take food stamps away from tens of thousands of poor Illinoisans. My new law puts families in need ahead of this extreme ideology.”

While the Trump administration is pushing new rules that would indiscriminately force single parents, the disabled, and those in economic depressed communities to meet stringent work requirements in order to receive the SNAP benefits they need to feed themselves and their families, Hernandez sponsored Senate Bill 1791, which ensures that SNAP benefits can only be tied to work requirements in specific situations where the necessary supports and resources are available. Many SNAP recipients live in areas where work programs are not equipped to handle giving everyone a job or job training. If the Trump administration is successful in passing policy that forces every SNAP recipient to meet work requirements, many would lose their benefits simply because the places they live do not have enough job opportunities to go around. Hernandez’s legislation passed with strong bipartisan support and is now law.

“Working families on SNAP shouldn’t be a political punching bag,” Hernandez said. “Donald Trump and his cronies are making policy decisions based on a narrow-minded, heartless ideology, and I won’t let their cruelty infect our communities.”