DENVER — A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction Tuesday blocking the Trump administration from proceeding with a pilot program that would have required Colorado to recertify 100,000 Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients within 30 days, ruling the state is likely to succeed on the merits of its case.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture's December 2025 directive targeted five metro area Colorado counties: Adams, Arapahoe, Boulder, Douglas and Jefferson. It demanded that they reverify all SNAP participants or face potential sanctions and loss of funding. The program assists low-income families with food purchases, providing an average of $300 per month in benefits.
"This is an extraordinary power grab, if you could essentially impose one set of rules for states that you don't like and another set of rules for the states that you do," David Moskowitz argued on behalf of the Colorado Attorney General’s Office.
The judge found the state would likely suffer irreparable harm in terms of human and economic costs, that some recipient households would lose benefits in the rush to comply, and that the threat of federal sanctions was itself causing irreparable harm to the state.