PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WJAR) — The Trump Administration is once again threatening to withhold SNAP funds from some states, including Rhode Island and Massachusetts, because they’re refusing to share the data of the people in each state receiving the benefits.

“That’s a matter of the courts in terms of the information. We believe that handing over private information violates a person’s rights. That’s why we’re in court right now,” Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee said Wednesday.

The information the Trump Administration wants includes the names and immigration status of SNAP recipients.

Gov. Dan McKee spoke with NBC 10’s Gabrielle Caracciolo. (WJAR)

Twenty-two states, including Rhode Island and Massachusetts, sued the feds earlier this year over the demand to handover the data winning a preliminary injunction in October to halt the request.

Its not clear how the threat to withhold funding will impact the litigation.

“Very short term we can certainly help but we don’t have the funds to backfill that program,” Rhode Island House Speaker Joe Shekarchi said.

The Trump Administration argues the data is needed to help root out fraud.

“I think when you’re dealing with thousands and thousands of people, you can’t absolutely guarantee it,” McKee said of fraud within the system. “But I know that we make sure that we put the effort in to make sure that the people who are receiving the benefit are entitled to the benefit.”

“I don’t think there’s a lot of fraud. I think there may be a lot of waste and a lot of inefficiencies in the program. I could say that’s just about a lot of programs. But there’s a difference between inefficiencies and waste and then actual fraud,” Shekarchi said. ‘Fraud is a criminal act and if there is fraud it should be prosecuted with full extended law and I support that. But overall the program helps a lot of needy Rhode Islanders and just because there may be a small percentage of waste or mismanagement doesn’t mean you stop the program. It means you fix it and make corrections along the way.”

In Massachusetts, Gov. Maura Healey said in a statement, “This is truly appalling and cruel. The Trump Administration is once again playing politics with the ability of working parents with children, seniors and people with disabilities to get food. President Trump needs to order Secretary Rollins to release SNAP funding immediately and prevent more Americans from going hungry.”

PROVIDENCE — The US Department of Justice filed a lawsuit Tuesday against Rhode Island, Delaware, Maryland, New Mexico, Vermont, and Washington, asking a judge to force them to hand over voter records that include driver’s license numbers and partial social security numbers.

The lawsuit is the latest of the DOJ’s efforts to compel states to hand over the records. Rhode Island Secretary of State Gregg Amore said in September he would hand over the public voter list, but not the list that includes private data the DOJ was requesting.

“One of my most important responsibilities as the chief state election official is safeguarding the data privacy of Rhode Islanders, who entrust us with their personal information when they register to vote,” Amore said Tuesday after the lawsuit was filed. “I will continue to fight to protect it.”

Amore’s office said the Trump administration has “not been forthcoming on how they will use Rhode Islanders’ private voter data, and they have not provided valid legal justification to obtain it,” said LeeAnne Byrne, Amore’s chief of staff.

She said Amore is concerned that Trump will try to “challenge the clear Constitutional role of states to administer elections in order to undermine voter confidence.”

On Tuesday evening, the DOJ said in a press release that they would continue to file “proactive election integrity litigation” until states comply.

“Accurate voter rolls are the cornerstone of fair and free elections, and too many states have fallen into a pattern of noncompliance with basic voter roll maintenance,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in the press release.

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon said states that refuse to turn over the data are interfering with the DOJ’s “mission of ensuring that Americans have accurate voter lists as they go to the polls, that every vote counts equally, and that all voters have confidence in election results.”

The Justice Department has requested voter data from at least 40 states, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

In its lawsuit, the DOJ said it was seeking to investigate Rhode Island’s compliance with the National Voter Registration Act, commonly known as the “motor voter” law from 1993 that allowed states to register voters when they apply for driver’s licenses, along with the 2002 Help America Vote Act.

The goal is to “ascertain Rhode Island’s compliance with list maintenance requirements,” the suit says.

Trump has long claimed that illegal voting is happening in the US, including noncitizen voting.

The New York Times reported in September that the Justice Department is trying to compile a national voter roll, “buttressing an effort by President Trump and his supporters to try to prove long-running, unsubstantiated claims that droves of undocumented immigrants have voted illegally.”

Elections — including federal elections — are run by individual states, which also maintain the voter rolls in their own states. In his letter to the DOJ in September refusing the request, Amore said Rhode Island maintains the list according to the law and has removed more than 100,000 voters since 2023.

Amore also recently sent out a letter to active voters asking them to confirm their voter registrations ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. If someone received a letter for a person who no longer lives there, they were asked to send it back and note that the person is not at the address.

Cities and towns are currently processing the responses to that letter, Byrne said. Voters whose letters were returned as undeliverable will be moved to inactive status in the coming weeks.

The ACLU of Rhode Island said the DOJ’s demand posed a “major threat to the privacy of Rhode Island voters.”

“Drivers’ licenses and social security numbers provided as part of the voter registration process are sensitive pieces of information that deserve to be protected,” the ACLU said Tuesday. “This latest attempt to collect enormous amounts of data should be of concern to anyone who wants to prevent the misuse of personal information by the federal government.”

Amore has 21 days to respond to the DOJ’s lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in Providence.

Steph Machado can be reached at steph.machado@globe.com. Follow her @StephMachado.