Twenty-one state attorneys general just sued the federal government over food stamps. Not to feed more hungry American citizens. To keep benefits flowing to noncitizens and to stop Washington from checking whether the people collecting them are alive, unique, or even eligible in the first place.I have spent three decades in investment management, much of it as an expert witness reconstructing where money actually went when someone claims it went somewhere else. That training teaches you one thing fast: when an institution fights harder to keep records sealed than to fix the underlying problem, the records are the problem.On Oct. 31, the USDA issued guidance implementing the SNAP reforms in President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, narrowing eligibility for certain noncitizen categories consistent with the law Congress passed. New York Attorney General Letitia James, leading a coalition of twenty other Democratic AGs, filed suit in federal court in Oregon, calling the guidance “arbitrary and capricious” and demanding a judge vacate it. A separate but related fight, led by California, challenges USDA’s demand that states hand over recipient data, including names, birthdates, and Social Security numbers, so the agency can check the rolls against reality.