Trump Officials Plan To Fire SNAP Worker Who Spoke Up About Program Disruptions
HuffPost
Ellen Mei was interviewed about the food assistance program during the shutdown. She received a termination letter the next day.
President Donald Trump’s U.S. Agriculture Department plans to fire an employee in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program after she gave a media interview in which she raised concerns about Americans going hungry due to the program’s disruptions.
Ellen Mei, a SNAP program specialist and local union representative, appeared on MSNBC on Oct. 2 to discuss how the government shutdown was impacting federal workers and the USDA’s food assistance operations. She said that workers administering the SNAP program were feeling “overworked and exhausted” due to agency cuts and explained how funding could run out if the shutdown dragged on.
The Trump administration eventually began withholding food stamp benefits from states, using the prospect of food insecurity to successfully pressure Democrats into caving in the funding fight. Millions of Americans rely on the program to buy groceries and feed their families.
The day after her MSNBC interview, the USDA informed Mei, who is based in Boston and was furloughed at the time, that she would be fired for publicly talking about program availability without prior approval, according to correspondence reviewed by HuffPost.
Mei said she was simply exercising her First Amendment rights by discussing what the shutdown could mean for the SNAP program.
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