Two federal judges ruled Friday that the Trump administration must fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the nation’s largest food aid program, for November — just one day before the food stamp program was set to expire.

Judge Indira Talwani of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts issued a 15-page order saying the administration has until Monday to indicate whether it will partially or fully fund November’s benefits. Also on Friday, a federal judge in Rhode Island ruled in a separate lawsuit that the Trump administration must pay for SNAP benefits as soon as possible using its emergency funds.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which funds the SNAP program, told recipients and state agencies that administer the program it won’t have enough money to pay for the program in November if the government shutdown continues.

But a coalition of Democrat-led states, including Illinois, sued the Trump administration earlier this week to force the use of contingency funding to pay for SNAP during the shutdown.

The attorneys general and governors argued that the federal government has access to $3 billion in SNAP contingency reserve funds to use when “necessary to carry out program operations.” The USDA used the emergency funding to pay for SNAP during the last government shutdown in 2019.

However, Trump administration officials told the court that using the emergency funding in this manner, without a clear directive from Congress, is unlawful.

The administration also suggested it could take weeks to pay out the benefits in November, and recipients will receive a smaller payment than their usual benefit.

The White House referred the Sun-Times to its Office of Management and Budget, which could not immediately be reached for comment. The Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In her order on Friday, Talwani said the states “are likely to succeed on their claim that [the Trump administration’s] suspension of SNAP benefits is unlawful.”

She said the administration was wrong to suggest that the USDA is prohibited by law from using the contingency funding to pay for SNAP during a shutdown. The administration may also tap other sources of funding for the program.

It wasn’t immediately clear how quickly the debit cards that SNAP recipients use to buy groceries using their benefits could be reloaded. That process often takes one to two weeks.

Roughly 2 million Illinoisans receive SNAP benefits, and the USDA funnels $350 million each month to the state.

Following the announcement that benefits may not go out in November, SNAP recipients have told the Sun-Times that they are scrambling to find help elsewhere, and food banks and pantries said they are doing their best to boost capacity but are nowhere near meeting the gap.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Thursday signed an executive order directing $20 million in state funding to support food banks across Illinois. Several other states, including California, Hawaii, North Dakota and Missouri, will similarly use state money to fill the gap.