Brooke Rollins Reveals Staggering SNAP Benefits Numbers [WATCH]

Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins announced Sunday that thousands of illegal migrants have been removed from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), confirming that the administration is moving ahead with a sweeping overhaul to ensure only eligible Americans receive food benefits.

Speaking on “Fox & Friends Weekend,” Rollins said that since taking over the Department of Agriculture, the administration has begun an extensive audit of the SNAP system, identifying large-scale misuse and fraudulent claims linked to ineligible recipients.

“There’s been a lot of miscommunication out there on the program, but this is one of the first things we did,” Rollins said.

“When I walked into Day One of USDA, February 13th, is we sent letters to every governor in America being very clear that no illegal aliens can use SNAP. Zero.”

Rollins said her department, working with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), launched a data review operation that requested every state’s information on SNAP beneficiaries to determine how the program expanded during former President Joe Biden’s tenure.

“We asked every state for the first time in history — and this was in February — to send us their data and let us, with DOGE and a war room, actually start going through this data to better understand how this explosion of SNAP benefits happened under Joe Biden. We increased almost 40% on this program in just a couple of years under the Biden administration.”

According to Rollins, 29 states have complied with the data request — primarily Republican-led states, though a few Democratic states have also participated.

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“In that data — and I haven’t talked about this yet publicly — we have found, we have thousands and thousands of illegal use of the [Electronic Benefit Transfer] EBT card,” she said.

“We have been moving people off of SNAP. We’ve got almost 700,000 people I think we’ve moved off just since the president took office. We’ve arrested about 118 people. So this has been ongoing.”

The issue of SNAP funding resurfaced in October 2025 as the government shutdown continued.

Several Democratic governors and attorneys general sued the Trump administration, arguing that the Department of Agriculture should use contingency funds to maintain food aid despite the shutdown.

California Governor Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta announced their state would join others — including Arizona and Massachusetts — in suing over what they described as an “unlawful refusal” to continue benefits.

The USDA issued a notice on Monday stating that SNAP benefits would be paused beginning November 1, citing legal restrictions on using the $5 billion contingency fund.

Reuters reported that the agency said those funds were “not legally available” for that purpose. By Friday, two federal judges ordered the administration to use contingency funds temporarily to sustain the benefits.

Rollins said the federal review had revealed widespread abuse in the SNAP system, including duplicate recipients and benefits issued to deceased individuals.

“What this conversation has allowed is a national spotlight on a broken and corrupt program,” she said.

“We found one guy in six different states getting a benefit. We found about 5,000 people that are dead who are still getting benefits.”

She added that the findings would drive major reforms.

“It is time to drastically reform this program so that we can make sure that those who are truly needy, truly vulnerable, are getting what they need and the rest of the corruption goes away and we can serve the American taxpayer,” Rollins said.

Rollins concluded by affirming that the administration remains committed to restoring accountability to federal assistance programs.

“We want to, number one, most important, get the government open. Make sure the people that really need this money are going to get it,” she said.

“But guess what? There’s a new sheriff in town. His name is Donald Trump and this program will be reformed. We will hold people accountable and we will be able to help those who really need it.”

According to a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services memo obtained in September 2025 by the Daily Caller News Foundation, federal officials have been directed to identify and remove migrant applicants deemed more likely to become dependent on government assistance.

While detailed data on illegal migrants’ use of SNAP is limited, USDA figures from 2022 showed the program provided benefits to approximately 1.465 million noncitizens, with an additional 2.2 million children in noncitizen households also receiving SNAP aid, according to the Economic Policy Innovation Center (EPIC).

California led all states that year, distributing 273,000 food stamp benefits to noncitizens, followed by Florida with 238,000 and New York with 218,000.