POLITICS

CLARKSTON, Ga. — After fleeing the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo, Antoinette landed in the Atlanta area last November and began to find her footing with federal help.

Separated from her adult children and grieving her husband’s death in the war, she started a job packing boxes in a warehouse, making just enough to cover rent for her own apartment and bills.

Antoinette has been relying on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps, for her weekly grocery trips.

But now, just as life is starting to stabilize, she will have to deal with a new setback.

President Donald Trump’s massive budget law, which Republicans call the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, slashes $187 billion — or nearly 20% — from the federal budget for SNAP through 2034. And separate from any temporary SNAP stoppages due to the federal shutdown, the law cuts off access completely for refugees and other immigrant groups in the country lawfully. The change was slated to take effect immediately when the law was signed in July, but states are still awaiting federal guidance on when to stop or phase it out.

For Antoinette, 51, who did not want her last name used for fear of deportation and likely persecution in her native country, the loss of food aid is dire.

“I would not have the means to buy food,” she said in French through a translator. “How am I going to manage?”

Throughout its history, the U.S. has admitted into the country refugees like Antoinette, people who have been persecuted, or fear persecution, in their homelands due to race, religion, nationality, political opinions, or membership in a particular social group. These legal immigrants typically face an in-depth vetting process that can start years before they set foot on U.S. soil.

Once they arrive — often with little or no means — the federal government provides resources such as financial assistance, Medicaid, and SNAP, outreach that has typically garnered bipartisan support. Now the Trump administration has pulled back the country’s decades-long support for refugee communities.

The budget law, which funds several of the president’s priorities, including tax cuts to wealthy Americans and border security, revokes refugees’ access to Medicaid, the state-federal health insurance program for people with low incomes or disabilities, starting in October 2026.

But one of the first provisions to take effect under the law removes SNAP eligibility for most refugees, asylum seekers, trafficking and domestic violence victims, and other legal immigrants. About 90,000 people will lose SNAP in an average month as a result of the new restrictions narrowing which noncitizens can access the program, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

“It doesn’t get much more basic than food,” said Matthew Soerens, vice president of advocacy and policy at World Relief, a Christian humanitarian organization that supports U.S. refugees. “Our government invited these people to rebuild their lives in this country with minimum support,” Soerens said. “Taking food away from them is wrong.”

Not just a handout

The White House and officials at the United States Department of Agriculture did not respond to emails about support for the provision that ends SNAP for refugees in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

But Steven Camarota, director of research for the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for reduced levels of immigration to the U.S., said cuts to SNAP eligibility are reasonable because foreign-born people and their young children disproportionately use public benefits.

Still, Camarota said, the refugee population is different from other immigrant groups. “I don’t know that this would be the population I would start with,” Camarota said. “It’s a relatively small population of people that we generally accept have a lot of need.”

Federal, state, and local spending on refugees and asylum seekers, including food, healthcare, education, and other expenses, totaled $457.2 billion from 2005 to 2019, according to a February 2024 report from the Department of Health and Human Services. During that time, 21% of refugees and asylum seekers received SNAP benefits, compared with 15% of all U.S. residents.

In addition to the budget law’s SNAP changes, financial assistance given to people entering the U.S. by the Office of Refugee Resettlement, a part of HHS, has been cut from one year to four months.

The HHS report also found that despite the initial costs of caring for refugees and asylees, this community contributed $123.8 billion more to federal, state, and local governments through taxes than they received in public benefits over the 15 years.

It’s in the country’s best interest to continue to support them, said Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of Global Refuge, a nonprofit refugee resettlement agency.

“This is not what we should think about as a handout,” she said. “We know that when we support them initially, they go on to not just survive but thrive.”

Food is medicine

Clarkston, Georgia, an Atlanta suburb, is home to thousands of refugees.

(Renuka Rayasam/KFF Health News)

Food insecurity can have lifelong physical and mental health consequences for people who have already faced years of instability before coming to the U.S., said Andrew Kim, co-founder of Ethnē Health, a community health clinic in Clarkston, an Atlanta suburb that is home to thousands of refugees.

Noncitizens affected by the new law would have received, on average, $210 a month within the next decade, according to the CBO. Without SNAP funds, many refugees and their families might skip meals and switch to lower-quality, inexpensive options, leading to chronic health concerns such as obesity and insulin resistance, and potentially worsening already serious mental health conditions, he said.

After her husband was killed in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Antoinette said, she became separated from all seven of her children. The youngest is 19. She still isn’t sure where they are. She misses them but is determined to build a new life for herself. For her, resources like SNAP are critical.

From the conference room of New American Pathways, the nonprofit that helped her enroll in benefits, Antoinette stared straight ahead, stone-faced, when asked about how the cuts would affect her.

Will she shop less? Will she eat fewer fruits and vegetables, and less meat? Will she skip meals?

“Oui,” she replied to each question, using the French for “yes.”

Since arriving in the U.S. last year from Ethiopia with his wife and two teen daughters, Lukas, 61, has been addressing diabetes-related complications, such as blurry vision, headaches, and trouble sleeping. SNAP benefits allow him and his family to afford fresh vegetables like spinach and broccoli, according to Lilly Tenaw, the nurse practitioner who treats Lukas and helped translate his interview.

His blood sugar is now at a safer level, he said proudly after a class at Mosaic Health Center, a community clinic in Clarkston, where he learned to make lentil soup and balance his diet.

“The assistance gives us hope and encourages us to see life in a positive way,” he said in Amharic through a translator. Lukas wanted to use only his family name because he had been jailed and faced persecution in Ethiopia, and now worries about jeopardizing his ability to get permanent residency in the U.S.

Since arriving in the U.S. last year from Ethiopia, Lukas has been visiting the Mosaic Health Center in Clarkston, Ga., to address diabetes-related complications. Food stamps allow him and his family to afford fresh vegetables like spinach and broccoli.

(Renuka Rayasam/KFF Health News)

Hunger and poor nutrition can lower productivity and make it hard for people to find and keep jobs, said Valerie Lacarte, a senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute.

“It could affect the labor market,” she said. “It’s bleak.”

More SNAP cuts to come

While the Trump administration ended SNAP for refugees effective immediately, the change has created uncertainty for those who provide assistance.

State officials in Texas and California, which receive the most refugees among states, and in Georgia told KFF Health News that the USDA, which runs the program, has yet to issue guidance on whether they should stop providing SNAP on a specific date or phase it out.

And it’s not just refugees who are affected.

Nearly 42 million people receive SNAP benefits, according to the USDA. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that, within the next decade, more than 3 million people will lose monthly food dollars because of planned changes — such as an extension of work requirements to more people and a shift in costs from the federal government to the states.

In September, the administration ended a key report that regularly measured food insecurity among all U.S. households, making it harder to assess the toll of the SNAP cuts.

The USDA also posted on its website that no benefits would be issued for anyone starting Nov. 1 because of the federal shutdown, blaming Senate Democrats. The Trump administration has refused to release emergency funding — as past administrations have done during shutdowns — so that states can continue issuing benefits while congressional leaders work out a budget deal. A coalition of attorneys general and governors from 25 states and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit on Oct. 28 contesting the administration’s decision.

Cuts to SNAP will ripple through local grocery stores and farms, stretching the resources of charity organizations and local governments, said 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 said.

Muzhda Oriakhil, senior community engagement manager at Friends of Refugees, an Atlanta-area nonprofit that helps refugees resettle, said her group and others are scrambling to provide temporary food assistance for refugee families. But charity organizations, food banks, and other nonprofit groups cannot make up for the loss of billions of federal dollars that help families pay for food.

“A lot of families, they may starve,” she said.

Rayasam writes for KFF.

Six years ago, when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld highly partisan state election maps in North Carolina and Maryland — ruling that federal courts cannot block states from drawing up maps that favor one party over the other — one of the court’s liberal justices issued a warning.

“If left unchecked, gerrymanders like the ones here may irreparably damage our system of government,” Associate Justice Elena Kagan wrote in a dissent.

Kagan argued that Republicans in North Carolina and Democrats in Maryland — the two examples before the court — had rigged elections in a way that “deprived citizens of the most fundamental of their constitutional rights,” “debased and dishonored our democracy” and turned “upside-down the core American idea that all governmental power derives from the people.”

“Ask yourself,” Kagan said as she recounted what had happened in each state: “Is this how American democracy is supposed to work?”

That’s the question Californians are now weighing as they decide how, or whether, to vote on Proposition 50, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan to scrap congressional maps drawn by the state’s independent redistricting commission and replace them with maps drawn by legislators to favor Democrats through 2030.

Democrats don’t deny that the measure is a deliberate attempt to dilute GOP voting power.

From the start, they’ve argued that the point of redistricting is to weaken Republicans’ voting power in California — a move they justify on the grounds that it is a temporary fix to offset similar partisan gerrymandering by Texas Republicans. This summer, President Trump upped the ante, pressing Texas to rejigger maps to shore up the GOP’s narrow House majority ahead of the 2026 election.

Experts say opponents of Proposition 50 have no viable federal legal challenge against the new maps on the basis that they disenfranchise a large chunk of California Republicans. Even since the 2019 U.S. Supreme Court decision Rucho vs. Common Cause, complaints of partisan gerrymandering have no path in federal court.

Already, Proposition 50 has survived challenges in state court and is unlikely to be successfully challenged if passed, said Richard L. Hasen, professor of law and director of the Safeguarding Democracy Project at UCLA School of Law.

“If you’re a Republican in California, or you’re a Democrat in Texas, you’re about to get a lot less representation in Congress,” Hasen said. “I don’t think there’s anything you can do about that.”

If Californians vote in favor of the measure on Tuesday, the number of Republicans in the state’s House — nine of 52 total members — would likely be reduced by five. That could mean Republicans have less than 10% of California’s congressional representation even though Trump won 38% of the 2024 vote.

“All of this is unconstitutional, but the federal courts aren’t available to help,” said Justin Levitt, a law professor at Loyola Law School.

“Every time you redraw a district specifically to protect some candidates and punish others,” Levitt said, “what you’re basically saying is it shouldn’t be up to the voters to weigh in on whether they think the candidates are doing a good job or not.”

Possible legal avenues

But even if the issue of partisan gerrymandering is blocked in federal courts, there are other potential legal avenues to challenge California’s new legislative maps.

One route would be to claim that Proposition 50 violates the California Constitution.

David A. Carrillo, executive director of the California Constitution Center at Berkeley Law, said that if Proposition 50 passes, he expects a barrage of “see what sticks” lawsuits raising California constitutional claims. They stand little chance of success, he said.

“Voters created the redistricting commission,” he said. “What the voters created they can change or abolish.”

Attorneys might also bring racial discrimination claims in federal court alleging California lawmakers used partisan affiliation as a pretext for race in drawing the maps to disenfranchise one racial group or another, Carrillo said. Under current law, he said, such claims are very fact-dependent.

Attorneys are already poised to file complaints if the referendum passes.

Mark Meuser, a conservative attorney who filed a state complaint this summer seeking to block Proposition 50, said he is ready to file a federal lawsuit on the grounds that the new maps violate the Equal Protection Clause in the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

“We’re saying that race was a predominant factor in drawing the lines,” Meuser said. “When race is a predominant factor in drawing the lines without a compelling interest, strict scrutiny will mandate the maps be stricken.”

Some legal experts believe that would be a tricky case to prove.

“It sure seems like the new map was oriented predominantly around politics, not race,” Levitt argued. “And though they’d be saying that race was a predominant factor in drawing the lines, that’s very, very, very different from proving it. That’s an uphill mountain to climb on these facts.”

Some experts think the new maps are unlikely to raise strong Voting Rights Act challenges.

Eric McGhee, a senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California who specializes in elections, said the new districts appeared to have been carefully carved to preserve Latino- or Black-majority districts.

A successful challenge is possible, McGhee said, noting there are always novel legal arguments. “It’s just the big ones that you would think about that are the most obvious and the most traditional are pretty closed,” he said.

Supreme Court looms large

Ultimately, legal experts agree the fate of California maps — and other maps in Texas and across the nation — would depend on the Supreme Court’s upcoming ruling on a redistricting case from Louisiana.

Last month, conservative Supreme Court justices suggested in a hearing that they were considering reining in a key part of the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act that prohibits voting practices or procedures that discriminate on the basis of race, color, or membership in a language minority group.

“Whatever happens with Proposition 50 — pass or fail — almost doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things,” Carrillo said, noting that the Supreme Court could use the Louisiana case to strike Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. “There’s a big litigation storm coming in almost any scenario.”

Levitt agreed that the Supreme Court ruling on the Voting Rights Act, which could come any time between now and June, could change current law. But he stressed it is impossible to predict how broad the ruling could be.

“Whether that leaves any of California’s districts vulnerable — either in the current map or in the map if Prop. 50 passes — depends entirely on what Scotus says,” Levitt argued. “There are only nine people who know what they’ll actually say, and there are a lot of possibilities, some of which might affect California’s map pretty substantially, and some of which are unlikely to affect California’s map at all.”

Will Congress intervene?

As the redistricting battle spreads across the country and Democratic and Republican states look to follow Texas and California, Democrats could ultimately end up at a disadvantage. If the overall tilt favors Republicans, Democrats would have to win more than 50% of the vote to get a majority of seats.

Congress has the power to block partisan gerrymandering in congressional map drawing. But attempts so far to pass redistricting reform have been unsuccessful.

In 2022, the House passed the Freedom to Vote Act, which would have prohibited mid-decade redistricting and blocked partisan gerrymandering of congressional maps. But Republicans were able to block the bill in the Senate, even though it had majority support, due to that chamber’s filibuster rules.

Another option is a narrower bill proposed this summer by Republican Rep. Kevin Kiley, who represents parts of the Sacramento suburbs and Lake Tahoe and could lose his seat if Proposition 50 passes. Kiley’s bill, along with similar legislation introduced by California Democratic representatives, would ban mid-decade redistricting.

“That would be the cleanest way of addressing this particular scenario we’re in right now, because all of these new plans that have been drawn would become null and void,” McGhee said.

But in a heavily deadlocked Congress, Kiley’s bill has little prospect of moving.

“It may have to get worse before it gets better,” Hasen said.

If the redistricting war doesn’t get resolved, Hasen said, there will be a continued race to the bottom, particularly if the Supreme Court weakens or strikes down Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

Another scenario, Hasen argued, is Democrats regain control of Congress and the presidency, overcome the filibuster rule and pass redistricting reform.

If that doesn’t happen, Levitt said, the ultimate power rests with the people.

“If we want to tell our representatives that we’re sick of this, we can,” Levitt said. “There’s a lot that’s competing for voters’ attention. But that doesn’t mean that we don’t have agency here.”

It was April 2021 and the LAPD was facing sharp criticism over its handling of mass protests against police brutality. The Black Lives Matter-Los Angeles complaint accused officers of firing less-lethal weapons at demonstrators who posed no threat, among other abuses.

Smith said the assistant Los Angeles city attorney wanted his signature on a prewritten sworn declaration that described how LAPD officers had no choice but to use force against a volatile crowd hurling bottles and smoke bombs during a 2020 protest in Tujunga.

He refused to put his name on it.

Instead, eight months later, Smith filed his own lawsuit against the city, alleging he faced retaliation for trying to blow the whistle on a range of misconduct within the LAPD.

Los Angeles Police Department Capt. Johnny Smith.

(LAPD)

Smith and his attorneys declined to be interviewed by The Times, but evidence in his lawsuit offers a revealing look at the behind-the-scenes coordination — and friction — between LAPD officials and the city attorney’s office in defense of police use of force at protests.

Smith’s lawsuit says he felt pressured to give a misleading statement to cover up for reckless behavior by officers.

The captain’s claim, filed December 2021 in Los Angeles Superior Court, has taken on new significance with the city facing fresh litigation over LAPD crowd control tactics during recent protests against the Trump administration.

The 2020 protests led to a court order that limits how LAPD officers can use certain less-lethal weapons, including launchers that shoot hard-foam projectiles typically used to disable uncooperative suspects.

The city is still fighting to have those restrictions lifted, along with others put in place as a result of a separate lawsuit filed in June by press rights organizations.

Last month, City Atty. Heidi Feldstein Soto drew a rebuke from the City Council after she sought a temporary stay of the order issued by U.S. District Judge Hernán D. Vera.

Soto argued that the rules — which prohibit officers from targeting journalists and nonviolent protesters — are overly broad and impractical. Vera rejected Soto’s request, but the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is taking up the matter, with a hearing tentatively set for mid-November.

A counterprotestor is arrested after approaching Trump supporters holding a rally in Tujunga in 2020.

(Kyle Grillot / AFP / via Getty Images)

Smith said in his lawsuit that he wouldn’t put his name on the Tujunga declaration because he had reviewed evidence that showed officers flouting LAPD rules on beanbag shotguns, as well as launchers that fire 37mm and 40mm projectiles — roughly the size of mini soda cans — at over 200 mph.

Smith’s lawsuit said the launchers are intended to be “target specific,” or fired at individuals who pose a threat — not to disperse a crowd.

Smith said he raised alarms for months after the Tujunga protest, which occurred amid outrage over the police killings nationwide of Black and Latino people at the end of President Trump’s first term.

But it wasn’t until the city got sued, Smith’s complaint said, that incidents he flagged started to receive attention.

The city has denied the allegations in Smith’s lawsuit, saying in court filings that each LAPD use of force case was thoroughly investigated.

Smith’s lawsuit cites emails to senior LAPD officials that he says show efforts to sanitize the department’s handling of excessive force complaints from the protests.

An internal task force deemed most of the citizen complaints “unfounded.” Yet nearly two dozen of those cases were later reopened after Smith and a small team of officers found that the department’s review missed a litany of policy violations, his lawsuit says.

Smith also called out what he saw as “problematic bias” in the way what occurred at the Tujunga protest was reported up the chain of command.

His complaint describes a presentation given to then-Chief Michel Moore that downplayed the severity of the damage caused by less-lethal projectiles. According to Smith, the report omitted photos of “extensive injuries” suffered by one woman, who said in a lawsuit that she had to undergo plastic surgery after getting shot in the chest at close range with a beanbag round.

The LAPD stopped using bean-bag shotguns at protests after a state law banned the practice, but the department still allows officers to use the weapons in other situations, such as when subduing an uncooperative suspect.

Los Angeles police officers attempt to stop a confrontation between Trump supporters and counterprotestors during a pro-Trump rally in Tujunga in 2020.

(Kyle Grillot / AFP / via Getty Images)

Alan Skobin, a former police commissioner and a friend of Smith’s, told The Times he was in the room when Smith received a call in April 2021 from the city attorney’s office about the declaration he refused to sign.

The exchange appeared to turn tense, Skobin recalled, as Smith repeated that details contained in the document were a “lie.”

Skobin said he wondered whether the assistant city attorney went “back and examined the videotaped and all the other evidence.”

“That’s what I would hope would happen,” Skobin said.

A spokesperson for the Los Angeles city attorney, Karen Richardson, provided The Times with a California State Bar report that said there was insufficient evidence to discipline the lawyer involved; the case was closed in June 2024.

Richardson declined further comment, citing Smith’s pending lawsuit.

According to Smith, other high-ranking LAPD officials went along with the misleading story that the officers in Tujunga acted in response to being overwhelmed by a hostile crowd.

Smith claims he faced retaliation for reporting a fellow captain who said police were justified in using force against a protester who held a placard turned sideways “so that the pole can be used as a weapon against officers.”

Body camera footage showed a different version of events, Smith said, with officers launching an unjustified assault on the man and others around him.

The colleague that Smith reported, German Hurtado, has since been promoted to deputy chief.

The city has denied the allegations in court filings. When reached for comment on Friday, Hurtado said he was limited in what he could say because the litigation is ongoing.

“From what I understand all that’s been investigated and it was unfounded,” he said, referencing Smith’s allegations.

“The lawsuit, I don’t know where it’s and I don’t know anything about it. No one’s talked to me. No one’s deposed me.”

Critics argue that the LAPD continues to violate rules that prohibit targeting journalists during demonstrations.

After a peaceful daytime “No Kings Day” protest downtown Oct. 18, about 100 to 200 people lingered outside downtown’s Metropolitan Detention Center after nightfall. Police declared an unlawful assembly and officers began firing 40mm projectiles.

Lexis-Olivier Ray, a reporter for the news site L.A. Taco who regularly covers demonstrations, was among those hit by the rounds.

Hundreds participate in the No Kings Day of Peaceful Action in downtown Los Angeles on Oct. 18.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

In a video shared widely online, an LAPD officer can be heard justifying the incident by saying they were firing at “fake” journalists.

An LAPD spokesperson said the incident with Ray is under internal investigation and could offer no further comment.

Ray said it wasn’t the first time he’d been struck by less-lethal rounds at protests despite years of legislation and court orders.

“It’s pretty discouraging that stuff like this keeps happening,” he said.

Jim McDonnell was introduced by Mayor Karen Bass to serve as LAPD chief during a news conference at City Hall on Oct. 4, 2024.

(Ringo Chiu / For The Times)

LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell defended the department at the Police Commission’s weekly meeting Tuesday, saying the “No Kings” protesters who remained downtown after dark were shining lasers at officers, and throwing rocks, bottles and fireworks.

Asked about the incident involving Ray, the chief said he didn’t want to comment about it publicly, but would do so “offline” — drawing jeers from some in the audience who demanded an explanation.

McDonnell told the commission that he supported the city’s efforts to lift the court’s injunction. Easing the restrictions, he said, would “allow our officers to have access to less-lethal force options so that we don’t have to escalate beyond that.”

Times staff writer Noah Goldberg contributed to this report.

NEW YORK — President Trump’s request to add a documentary proof of citizenship requirement to the federal voter registration form cannot be enforced, a federal judge ruled Friday.

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in Washington, D.C., sided with Democratic and civil rights groups that sued the Trump administration over his executive order to overhaul U.S. elections.

She ruled that the proof-of-citizenship directive is an unconstitutional violation of the separation of powers, dealing a blow to the administration and its allies who have argued that such a mandate is necessary to restore public confidence that only Americans are voting in U.S. elections.

“Because our Constitution assigns responsibility for election regulation to the States and to Congress, this Court holds that the President lacks the authority to direct such changes,” Kollar-Kotelly wrote in her opinion.

She further emphasized that on matters related to setting qualifications for voting and regulating federal election procedures “the Constitution assigns no direct role to the President in either domain.”

Kollar-Kotelly echoed comments she made when she granted a preliminary injunction over the issue.

The ruling grants the plaintiffs a partial summary judgment that prohibits the proof-of-citizenship requirement from going into effect. It says the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, which has been considering adding the requirement to the federal voter form, is permanently barred from taking action to do so.

A message seeking comment from the White House was not immediately returned.

The lawsuit brought by the DNC and various civil rights groups will continue to play out to allow the judge to consider other challenges to Trump’s order. That includes a requirement that all mailed ballots be received, rather than just postmarked, by Election Day.

Other lawsuits against Trump’s election executive order are ongoing.

In early April, 19 Democratic state attorneys general asked a separate federal court to reject Trump’s executive order. Washington and Oregon, where virtually all voting is done with mailed ballots, followed with their own lawsuit against the order.

Swenson and Riccardi write for the Associated Press.