Most Refugees and Asylees Will Be Denied Food Stamps Under Trump’s New Law
They also say community organizations that provide aid to asylees and refugees are stretched thin. Without food stamps, they say, many refugees and their families would not have enough to eat.
“SNAP is an incredibly fundamental program for this population that comes to the United States, really, with very little, if anything,” said Nicolas Palazzo, a policy counsel at the global humanitarian and refugee advocacy organization HIAS. “These are people who literally had to flee — many times overnight — with nothing, but, you know, a pair of clothes in a backpack.”
Palazzo also said SNAP is not a “handout” to refugees or asylees. Rather, he said, it’s a “smart and moral investment” that protects all communities and strengthens the economy, offering people a foundation for self-sufficiency.
“Stripping critical food assistance forces refugees and asylees into the shadows of informal work, labor exploitation and hunger that weakens our workforce and denigrates our moral obligations,” Palazzo said.
‘Nowhere Else to Go’
B. said he applied immediately for asylum when he arrived in the U.S. in 2016, but that he had to wait months for a work permit. He survived by doing odd jobs, such as cleaning homes and delivering food, and got by on very little. It wasn’t until late 2024, when he finally won his asylum case, that he was eligible to get any public benefits, including food stamps.
Eligibility for food stamps came at a critical time for B., as a car accident had prevented him from making food deliveries.
“While not having income, it was very helpful,” B. said. “I’m somebody who if I can work, I will work. The only reason I went over there to ask is because I had nowhere else to go.”
According to a November 2024 report from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, a total of 60,050 people were newly admitted to the United States as refugees in 2023, many from unstable countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Syria and Afghanistan.
In 2023, the nation received at least 747,000 applications for people seeking asylum from countries including Venezuela, Cuba and Colombia, according to the Migration Policy Institute, an immigration research group. It’s a tremendous increase from the 68,000 applications received in 2013.
The new domestic policy law specifies that food stamps are still available to Cubans and Haitians who might be refugees and asylees.
As of July 2025, more than 2.2 million immigrants in the U.S. are awaiting asylum hearings or decisions after formally applying for asylum, according to Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, an organization at Syracuse University that tracks immigration cases.
“Getting through the system was difficult,” B. said. “I had to find money. I had to find an attorney who would help me apply for my asylum case. The asylum case itself took a long time.
“I still know people who have been here for more than 10 years and never had an interview.”
‘Already Stretched’
According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, half of all admitted refugees in 2023 were resettled across just 10 states: Texas, New York, California, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Arizona, Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan and Washington.
Barbara Guinn, commissioner of the New York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, estimates that around 41,000 people in the state are getting SNAP benefits while not being lawful permanent residents. She says that group includes refugees and asylees.
“The concerning part there is that these are individuals who were … lawfully admitted to the country, have previously been eligible for SNAP when they need it, and now, simply because of their status, will no longer be able to receive SNAP benefits,” Guinn told Stateline. “There’s nothing we’re going to be able to do to make them eligible.”
Another change under the new law is that for the first time, states will have to pay for a portion of their food stamp programs. States will have to cover between 5% and 15% of their SNAP costs beginning in fiscal year 2028, depending on how accurately they dole out benefits to people eligible for the program.
Robert Rector, a senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, pointed out that states that want to continue to provide SNAP benefits to refugees and asylees are free to do so — as long as they pay for it.
“If New York state doesn’t want to cut these people off, they can continue to give them something like food stamps. They just have to do it with New York state money right now,” Rector said.
But Guinn said that will be difficult. New York does offer asylum-seekers cash assistance of $180 a month through its Safety Net Assistance Program, but typically recipients must be working.
In Texas, officials at the state’s health and human services agency said that as of last month, roughly 24,600 of the state’s 3.5 million SNAP recipients were refugees or asylees. A spokesperson for Maryland’s human services agency wrote in an email that the state’s SNAP program last year supported more than 10,000 refugees and asylees.
The California Department of Social Services could not provide the number of refugees and asylees receiving food stamps, but projected that a total of 74,000 noncitizens — including lawfully permanent residents, refugees and asylees — would lose eligibility under the new law.
Sherri Laigle, the director of social services at HIAS, said food banks will not be able to make up for refugees’ and asylees’ loss of SNAP benefits.
“They’re already stretched, and now we’re going to see tens of thousands of people also needing to continue to rely on these programs. Of course, there’s limited access to them. You have to have transportation. You have to be able to get there.”
B. said he would apply for food stamps again if he could, because he’s earning too little income to get by.
“There are people who are in need. I think ignoring that — it’s not human.”
Shalina Chatlani covers health care and environmental justice for Stateline.The article originally appeared in Stateline. Stateline is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization, with reporting from every capital.Stateline journalists aim to illuminate the big challenges and policy trends that cross state borders. You may subscribe to Stateline here.
