MINNEAPOLIS — The battle between Minnesota and the Trump administration over food assistance data has intensified after the Justice Department sued to compel the state to hand over its records, including beneficiary information.

The lawsuit asks a federal court to force the Minnesota Department of Children, Youth, and Families to turn over five years’ worth of data tied to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits after Minnesota and other states have refused to share participants’ personal data with the federal government. The litigation adds to the ongoing dispute between the federal government and state officials over the right to access information about Minnesotans in the nutrition program, which serves 37 million people across the country in an average month.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture said it’s pursuing the data to check for fraud and waste and is seeking the program’s eligibility and benefit transaction records. Minnesota has repeatedly refused, as recently as May, the lawsuit contends. The Minnesota Star Tribune has contacted the Minnesota Department of Children, Youth, and Families for comment.

Attorney General Keith Ellison has previously called the demands for SNAP data misguided and unlawful, arguing they’re part of the Trump administration’s “personal and political grievances with Minnesota and its elected officials.” Ellison joined a lawsuit with 21 other states last year opposing a USDA directive that would have required the state to re-interview participants in the program within 30 days, under the threat of cutting off federal funding for refusing.

In its lawsuit, the Justice Department claimed more than two dozen states have given the requested records to the USDA, which they claim has shown up to $3 billion in waste and fraud per year.

“The American people deserve a government that is transparent about how it spends their hard-earned tax dollars,” acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement.

The lawsuit comes as newly released data shows an increase in Minnesota’s payment error rate for SNAP. The error rate measures how accurate a state was in determining who is eligible for the program and giving families the right amount of benefits.

Minnesota had a 12.6% error rate last year, a jump from less than 9% the previous year. The majority of the errors were overpayments.

The national error rate was 10.6% last year, which amounts to $10.1 billion in improper payments across the United States, according to USDA data published last week.

President Donald Trump’s massive spending and tax bill last year added a requirement that states with error rates at or above 6% will have to cover a portion of their benefits starting in October 2027.

Minnesota could face a $130 million annual penalty, according to Minnesota Budget Project, a progressive advocacy organization. The group said the error rate is “mostly a measure of honest mistakes, like data entry errors in the outdated systems states and counties use to administer SNAP.”

The Justice Department also filed lawsuits against Kentucky, Pennsylvania and Michigan over similar refusals.

The lawsuit is the latest example of the federal government’s push to obtain data from state agencies. Last year, the Justice Department took Minnesota’s Secretary of State to court over his refusal to hand over the state’s voter registration list. The administration also demanded the state hand over health and immigration information for Medicaid patients.

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(Jessie Van Berkel of the Minnesota Star Tribune contributed to this report.)

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