BOSTON — Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell scored a federal court win Friday after a Biden-appointed judge in Boston blocked the Trump administration's effort to tie billions of federal SNAP food-stamp dollars to state cooperation on illegal-immigration enforcement, gender ideology and bans on trans athletes in women's and girls' sports.
U.S. District Judge Myong Joun, who sits on the District of Massachusetts in Boston, granted a preliminary injunction blocking the U.S. Department of Agriculture's so-called "2026 Conditions" while the underlying lawsuit moves forward. Joun was nominated to the federal bench by President Joe Biden in January 2023 and confirmed that July, after a prior nine years on the Boston Municipal Court under then-Governor Deval Patrick.
The blocked USDA directive — quietly issued at the end of 2025 — would have required every state and territory that draws federal Agriculture Department funding to certify compliance with the Trump administration's positions on immigration enforcement, diversity, equity and inclusion, gender ideology and "fair athletic opportunities for women and girls" before USDA money would continue to flow.
The plaintiffs
The lawsuit was co-led by Campbell and filed in March in the federal courthouse in Boston, joined by attorneys general from California, Illinois, Wisconsin, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and Washington — 20 states and D.C. in total.
Together the plaintiff jurisdictions receive more than $74 billion a year in USDA funding, with roughly 975,000 Massachusetts residents drawing SNAP benefits each month as of January 2026, according to the AG's office.
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Campbell celebrated Joun's ruling on her Bluesky account Friday afternoon. "These grants are a lifeline — I'll always fight to protect food assistance for families," the attorney general wrote.
What was at stake
The Trump administration's "2026 Conditions" did not directly change who qualifies for SNAP — undocumented immigrants have been federally ineligible for the program since 1996 under PRWORA, a status reinforced by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025.
The conditions instead targeted state cooperation — requiring Massachusetts and the other plaintiff states to certify they would not "promote or facilitate gender ideology," that they would actively assist federal immigration enforcement, and that they would adopt policies barring transgender athletes from competing in women's and girls' athletic events, all as a condition of receiving federal Agriculture Department dollars.
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Campbell's coalition argued the certification requirement was "vague," "expansive" and "coercive," and that USDA had no statutory authority to impose conditions Congress had not written into law.
Joun agreed and granted the preliminary injunction.
What happens next
Friday's ruling is a preliminary injunction, not a final judgment — meaning the USDA conditions are paused while the underlying lawsuit proceeds in Boston federal court. The Trump administration is expected to appeal Joun's order to the First Circuit Court of Appeals.
In the meantime, Massachusetts and the other plaintiff states will keep drawing federal SNAP money without certifying compliance with the Trump conditions on illegal-immigration enforcement, gender ideology or trans-athlete bans.
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