ethnicity

With millions of people in the United States at risk of losing access to the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) – also known as food stamps – from November 1, a viral chart has claimed to show the majority of the nation’s food stamp recipients are non-white and noncitizens.

The chart, titled Food Stamps by Ethnicity, listed 36 groups of people and said it showed the “percentage of US households receiving SNAP benefits”.

The groups were labelled by nationality, such as “Afghan”, “Somali”, “Iraqi”, along with the racial groups “white”, “Black” and “native”. The chart appeared to show that Afghan people were the largest group receiving SNAP benefits, at 45.6 percent, followed by Somali (42.4 percent) and Iraqi (34.8 percent). White people, represented on the chart with the US flag, were third to last at 8.6 percent.

The federal government shutdown, which started on October 1, is the cause of the looming SNAP funding lapse. SNAP provides food purchasing benefits to low-income households. Conservatives have peddled the misleading narrative that Democrats are pushing for healthcare for undocumented migrants, and people commenting on the chart rehashed a similar talking point.

“Who is getting their EBT cut?” read the caption of an October 25 X post sharing the chart, which had 3.1 million views as of October 27. EBT stands for Electronic Benefits Transfer, which is a SNAP payment system.

“Only 18.7% of EBT or food stamp recipients are American. Let that sink in …” read another post sharing the chart, seemingly mistakenly referring to the figure next to the word “Armenian”; there was no “American” category in the chart. “We are subsidizing foreigners on the taxpayers dime.”

Who is getting their EBT cut pic.twitter.com/el8x9X5iVX

— The General (@1776General_) October 25, 2025

The chart doesn’t show the full picture of SNAP recipients by race or ethnicity. The most reliable source for the breakdown of SNAP recipients by demographics comes from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), which administers the programme.

According to the most recent USDA data available, from 2023, white people are the largest racial group receiving SNAP benefits, at 35.4 percent. African Americans are next, making up 25.7 percent of recipients, then Hispanic people at 15.6 percent, Asian people at 3.9 percent, Native Americans at 1.3 percent and multiracial people at 1 percent. The race of 17 percent of participants is unknown.

The same report found that 89.4 percent of SNAP recipients were US-born citizens, meaning less than 11 percent of SNAP participants were foreign-born. Of the latter figure, 6.2 percent were naturalised citizens, 1.1 percent were refugees and 3.3 percent were other noncitizens, including lawful permanent residents and other eligible noncitizens.

While large shares of the groups listed in the chart may receive food stamps, “they are certainly a tiny share of the households and spending on SNAP”, said Tracy Roof, University of Richmond associate professor of political science.

Survey data shows an incomplete picture on SNAP recipients

The chart shared on social media originated from a June blog post from The Personal Finance Wizards, which cited “US Census Table S0201” as its source. The site offers financial advice, but published a disclaimer saying it cannot guarantee the “completeness, accuracy, or reliability” of its information.

The site’s authors appeared to cherry-pick groups to include in the chart, noting, “It’s important to note that the graph highlights a selection of ethnicities we felt would be most relevant and engaging for our audience.” It did not name an author.

In a comment on an Instagram post sharing the chart, Personal Finance Wizards shared a link to the US Census table it used. It shows data from the 2024 American Community Survey, filtered by 49 racial and ethnic groups. The filtered groups don’t completely overlap with the groups in the chart, but the dataset has a column for “households with food stamp/SNAP benefits”, which shows percentages similar to the ones in the chart.

The data does not show what percentage of all SNAP beneficiaries belong to an ethnic or nationality group.

Joseph Llobrera, senior director of research for the food assistance team at the liberal think tank Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said the chart appeared to show the shares of households receiving SNAP based on the household respondents’ reported ancestry, which is different from citizenship status.

“Without context, this graphic is misleading and may lead some to conclude that many non-citizens are participating in SNAP, which is not true,” he said.

The American Community Survey allows respondents to self-identify their race. It also defines ancestry as a “person’s ethnic origin or descent, roots or heritage, place of birth, or place of parents’ ancestors before their arrival in the United States”.

Colleen Heflin, Syracuse University expert on food insecurity, nutrition and welfare policy, said the American Community Survey data on SNAP receipts is self-reported, and that question “is known to have a great deal of measurement error” when compared with SNAP administrative data.

Chart reflects higher levels of need in groups with higher shares of SNAP participation

Groups such as Afghans and Iraqis, who are first and third on the chart, would have been more likely to have immediately qualified for the SNAP programme before the One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s passage because of their special immigration status.

Before the law’s passage, refugees and people who had been granted asylum were also eligible for SNAP without a waiting period. Somalis, who were second on the chart, are “more likely” to qualify based on those criteria, Roof said.

Other noncitizens, such as lawful permanent residents, could be eligible for SNAP only after a five-year waiting period.

But the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act changed the eligibility, making refugees and asylum seekers ineligible. Immigrants in the country illegally are not and have never been eligible for SNAP.

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday vetoed legislation that would have allowed public and private colleges to provide preferential admissions to applicants directly descended from individuals who were enslaved in the United States before 1900.

The governor thanked the bill’s author for his commitment to addressing disparities and urged educational institutions to review and determine “how, when, and if this type of preference can be adopted.”

“This bill clarifies, to the extent permitted by federal law, that California public and private postsecondary educational institutions may consider providing a preference in admissions to an applicant who is a descendant of slavery,” Newsom wrote Monday in his veto. “These institutions already have the authority to determine whether to provide admissions preferences like this one, and accordingly, this bill is unnecessary.”

The legislation would not have required applicants to belong to any particular race or ethnicity — a crucial detail that proponents said distinguished it from affirmative action, which is banned at California colleges. Critics, however, argued the term “slave” was used as a proxy for race.

Legal experts told The Times last month the measure probably would have faced challenges in court if the governor signed it into law.

“The question with this sort of provision is does this count as on the basis of race?” said Ralph Richard Banks, professor at Stanford Law School and the founder and faculty director of the Stanford Center for Racial Justice. “A secondary issue is going to be whether, even if it is not formally about racial classification, was it really adopted to get around the no-racial-classification rule? The law prohibits indirect methods of doing something that would be prohibited if you were to do it directly.”

Race-based college admissions are banned by federal and state law.

Proposition 209, which California voters approved nearly three decades ago, amended the state Constitution to bar colleges from considering race, sex, national origin or ethnicity during admissions. The U.S. Supreme Court in 2023 in effect ended race-conscious college admissions nationwide, ruling in Students for Fair Admissions vs. Harvard that such policies violate the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

California became the first state government in the country to study reparations, efforts to remedy the lingering effects of slavery and systemic racism, after the 2020 killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer sparked a national conversation on racial justice.

Newsom and state lawmakers passed a law to create a “first in the nation” task force to study and propose effective ways to help atone for the legacy of slavery. That panel spent years working on a 1,080-page report on the effects of slavery and the discriminatory policies sanctioned by the government after slavery was abolished, and the findings became the genesis for a slate of legislation proposed by the California Legislative Black Caucus.

Last week, Newsom signed Senate Bill 518, which will create a new office called the Bureau for Descendants of American Slavery. That bureau will create a process to determine whether someone is the descendant of a slave and to certify someone’s claim to help them access benefits.

Assemblymember Isaac Bryan (D-Los Angeles), who introduced Assembly Bill 7, said his legislation would have allowed colleges to grant preference to the descendants of enslaved people in order to rectify a “legacy of exclusion, of harm.”

Andrew Quinio, an attorney specializing in equality issues for the Pacific Legal Foundation, believes AB 7 was blatantly unconstitutional. The foundation is a conservative public interest law firm that seeks to prevent government overreach.

“This was a bill that was born out of the Reparations Task Force recommendations; it was part of the package of bills of the Road to Repair from the California Legislative Black Caucus so this has a very clear racial intent and racial purpose and it will have a racial effect,” he said. “[Legislation] doesn’t have to benefit the entirety or even the majority of a demographic in order for it to be unlawfully based on race.”

Lisa Holder, a civil rights attorney and president of the Equal Justice Society, a progressive nonprofit that works to protect policies that promote diversity, argued the measure’s framing made it highly likely to satisfy legal challenges.

“This (legislation) is very specifically tailored to correct the harms that we have seen, the harms from the past that continue into the present,” she said. “… Because this bill seeks to erase those harms by focusing specifically on the descendant community, it is strong enough to establish a compelling interest.”

Gary Orfield, a law and education professor and co-founder of the Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles at UCLA, agreed the legislation was carefully written in a way that could have withstood legal challenges. He pointed out California allows university programs that support Native American students because they were narrowly tailored to focus on tribal affiliation — which is considered a political classification — instead of race or ethnicity.

Orfield said applicants of various races could have potentially benefited from the new admissions policy, as many Native Americans were enslaved and Asiatic coolieism, or Asian indentured servitude, was declared a form of human slavery in the state constitution in 1879.

“All Black people weren’t slaves and all slaves were not Black,” he said. “I think there is a good argument to say that slavery isn’t defined strictly by race and is not just a proxy for race and there certainly is a legitimate concern when you are thinking about remediation for historic violations.”

Orfield, however, said convincing the public was a different matter.

“I don’t think all people will easily understand this,” he said. “Americans tend to think that discrimination doesn’t cross over multiple generations. But I think that it does — I think there has been a long-lasting effect.”

Staff writer Melody Gutierrez contributed to this report.

Stephen Graham was presented with the Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie for his role in Netflix’s Adolescence.

Stephen Graham couldn’t help but get emotional during his Emmy acceptance speech as he stated “this kind of thing doesn’t happen to a kid like me”.

Adolescence became an instant global success when it was dropped on Netflix earlier this year, telling the story of a teenage boy accused of fatally stabbing another child.

Graham portrayed Eddie, the father of said teenager Jamie Miller, portrayed by 15-year-old Owen Cooper who has become the youngest male actor to win an Emmy.

When the 52-year-old took to the stage himself to claim his award for Outstanding Lead Actor, he touched upon his past before becoming an actor.

Graham shared: “This kind of thing doesn’t happen to a kid like me. I’m just a mixed race kid from a block of flats in a place called Kirkby.

“So for me, to be here today, in front of my peers and to be acknowledged by you is the utmost humbling thing I could ever imagine in my life, and it shows you that any dream is possible.”

While Graham was born in Kirby, Lancashire, he has both Jamaican and Swedish heritage on his father’s side.

His biological grandfather was part of the Windrush generation who moved to the UK from Jamaica in the 1960s but died before the actor was born.

Graham previously opened up on experiencing bullying when he was younger, telling Desert Island Discs: “I’m mixed race and that was kind of frowned on in those days.

“There were times growing up when I was slightly unsure where I fitted in. That n-word popped up when I was younger.”

Graham also spoke about how it was his step-father Mike Fazakerley, who he affectionately calls Pops, helped him through this difficult time.

He added: “He [Mike] helped me see who I am and what I am is good enough.

“He helped me find my own way and I got that sense of self in many respects from my mother, finding your own way.”

Adolescence proved to be the overall winners of the night at the Emmy this weekend with the show taking home six awards.

This included accolades for both Graham and Cooper’s performances, as well as for Limited or Anthology series, and Outstanding Supporting Actress for Erin Doherty.

Adolescence is available to watch on Netflix

WASHINGTON — Fifty years ago, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that U.S. Border Patrol agents violated the Constitution when they stopped a car on a freeway near San Clemente because its occupants appeared to be “of Mexican ancestry.”

The 4th Amendment protects Americans from unreasonable searches, the justices said then, and a motorist’s “Mexican appearance” does not justify stopping them to ask about their immigration status.

But the court sounded a decidedly different note on Monday when it ruled for the Trump administration and cleared the way for stopping and questioning Latinos who may be here illegally. By a 6-3 vote, the justices set aside a Los Angeles judge’s temporary restraining order that barred agents from stopping people based in part on their race or apparent ethnicity.

“Apparent ethnicity alone cannot furnish reasonable suspicion,” said Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh. “However, it can be a relevant factor when considered along with other salient factors.”

Critics of the ruling said it had opened the door for authorizing racial and ethnic bias.

UCLA law professor Ahilan Arulanantham called it “shocking and appalling. I don’t know of any recent decision like this that authorized racial discrimination.”

Arulanantham noted that Kavanaugh’s writings speak for the justice alone, and that the full court did not explain its ruling on a case that came through its emergency docket.

By contrast, he and others pointed out that the court under Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. prohibited the use of race or ethnicity as a factor in college admissions.

“Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it,” Roberts wrote for a 6-3 majority in 2023. That decision struck down the affirmative action policies at Harvard and the University of North Carolina.

“Today, the Supreme Court took a step in a badly wrong direction,” Ilya Somin, a George Mason University law professor, wrote on the Volokh Conspiracy blog. “It makes no sense to conclude that racial and ethnic discrimination is generally unconstitutional, yet also that its use is ‘reasonable’ under the 4th Amendment.”

Reports had already emerged before the decision of ICE agents confronting U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents before they have been able to prove their status, compelling many to begin carrying documentation around at all times.

In New York on Monday, one man outside a federal court was pushed by ICE agents before being able to show them his identification. He was let go.

Asked by The Times to respond to increasing concern among U.S. citizens they could be swept up in expanded ICE raids as a result of the ruling, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday that individuals should not be worried.

She added that immigration agents conduct targeted operations with the use of law enforcement intelligence.

“The Supreme Court upheld the Trump administration’s right to stop individuals in Los Angeles to briefly question them regarding their legal status, because the law allows this, and this has been the practice of the federal government for decades,” Leavitt said. “The Immigration and Nationality Act states that immigration officers can briefly stop an individual to question them about their immigration status, if the officer has reasonable suspicion that the individual is illegally present in the United States. And reasonable suspicion is not just based on race — it’s based on a totality of the circumstances.”

On X, the House Homeland Security Committee Democrats responded to Leavitt’s comments, writing: “ICE has jailed U.S. citizens. The Trump Admin is defending racial profiling. Nobody is safe when ‘looking Hispanic’ is treated as probable cause.”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor in her dissent pointed out that nearly half of the residents of Greater Los Angeles are Latino and can speak Spanish.

“Countless people in the Los Angeles area have been grabbed, thrown to the ground and handcuffed because of their looks, their accents, and the fact that they make a living by doing manual labor,” she wrote. “Today, the Court needlessly subjects countless more to these exact same indignities.”

At issue in the case was the meaning of “reasonable suspicion.”

For decades, the court has said police and federal agents may stop and question someone if they see something specific that suggests they may be violating the law.

But the two sides disagreed over whether agents may stop people because they appear to be Latinos and work as day laborers, at car washes or other low-wage jobs.

President Trump’s lawyers as well as Kavanaugh said agents may make stops based on the “totality of the circumstances” and that may include where people work as well as their ethnicity. They also pointed to the data that suggests about 10% of the people in the Los Angeles area are illegally in the United States.

Tom Homan, the White House border advisor, said that the legal standard of reasonable suspicion “has a group of factors you must take into consideration,” adding, “racial profiling is not happening at all.”

It is a “false narrative being pushed,” Homan told MSNBC in an interview, praising the Supreme Court decision. “We don’t arrest somebody or detain somebody without reasonable suspicion.”