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SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Last July, the introduction of the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” stirred concerns nationwide, as it threatened to strip millions of Americans, including hundreds of thousands from Illinois, of their federal food aid.
The legislation, also referred to as H.R. 1, enacted significant modifications to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), altering eligibility criteria and imposing stricter work requirements. These changes primarily jeopardize the benefits for certain immigrant groups and households without dependents, with many either having already lost or facing the imminent risk of losing their SNAP benefits this spring.
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One individual feeling the impact is Tatiana from Chicago, mother to three young children aged 6, 3, and 1. She has relied on SNAP for approximately six years, ever since her first child, Jashua, was born. Preferring to remain semi-anonymous, she shared her experience under her first name only.
Previously, Tatiana experienced a temporary loss of her SNAP benefits when her son was just an infant, which posed significant challenges until she was able to regain access to the program. Today, she continues to navigate the precarious balance between employment and maintaining her SNAP eligibility, describing it as a complex dilemma.
“Whenever I start working, I’m required to submit my paychecks, and if I earn too much, I have to worry about the possibility of losing my benefits,” Tatiana explained. Nonetheless, she needs to work enough to cover essential expenses beyond food, such as child care and housing.
Currently, Tatiana receives about $975 a month from SNAP for her and her three children. The average grocery trip is a “very stressful” experience, and she doesn’t have much support outside of herself, she said.
And if she were to lose access to SNAP again? “I don’t know,” Tatiana said. “It’s stressful. … I’m more anxious now.”
Save our SNAP rally
H.R. 1’s new work requirements went into effect Feb. 1. Recipients who can’t meet the requirements can only receive up to three months of SNAP benefits in a three-year period. May will be the first month that some households will lose those benefits.
And as of April 1, the only immigrants who can receive SNAP benefits are lawful permanent residents, certain immigrants from Cuba and Haiti, and people living in the United States under a Compact of Free Association, a work and trade agreement between the U.S. and The Marshall Islands, Micronesia and Palau. This removes eligibility from refugees, asylum-seekers, certain trafficking and domestic violence survivors, and other location-specific groups of immigrants.
Save our SNAP, a new Illinois-based coalition of more than 85 religious and social groups, food-assistance providers and health and human services organizations, rallied on Tuesday, April 14, at the Illinois Capitol to ask lawmakers to support three bills that would provide support to those who’ve lost access to their benefits.
“I know what this means because I’ve lived close to it. I’ve been on SNAP. I’ve watched my mother stretch meals for seven people,” Sen. Graciela Guzmán, D-Chicago, said at the rally. “SNAP was not abstract in my life. It was not a talking point. … I get to stand here as a senator because I had SNAP.”
Tatiana was one of hundreds who attended the rally, and she brought her three children with her from Chicago.
“It’s important to me,” she said of the initiative. “I feel like the goal was to be heard. … It’s very helpful to be able to go out there and rally.”
Nearly 1 million Illinois households received SNAP benefits in February 2026, down from just over 1 million in February 2025. According to the coalition, over 250,000 households are affected by the changes H.R. 1 made. And 150,000 of those have not yet submitted documentation of work, training, volunteering or exemption to keep their benefits, according to a news release from Gov. JB Pritzker. Recipients can check their status here.
“Too many of our neighbors are struggling to feed themselves and their families. Too many are having to make really impossible decisions about paying for shelter, paying for medicine, putting food on the table,” Kate Maehr, executive director and CEO of the Greater Chicago Food Depository, said at the rally. “We have to come here and lift our voice, because we cannot stand by.”
SNAP recipients looking for a way to earn hours and remain eligible can visit Job Ready Illinois to earn SNAP training hours or Serve.Illinois.gov to find volunteer hours. Additional work-related resources from the state are also available here.
Bills to offset lost benefits
“Not feeding people is a choice,” Guzmán said at the rally. “This is not about waste. This is not about fraud, and this is not about responsibility. This is about cruelty. This is about power.”
Guzmán is a sponsor on Senate Bills 3277, 3276 and 3167, the three bills that Save our SNAP is championing. The House versions have all missed the committee deadline, although that doesn’t mean they won’t come back later. The Senate bills are still being considered in committee. The measures call for funding but don’t provide funding sources, meaning lawmakers would have to separately allocate money in the budget process.
SB3277 would establish a program — Families Receiving Emergency Support for Hunger — that would give out one-time $600 payments to families who experienced a complete or partial loss of SNAP funding due to the new work requirements. That’s roughly equivalent to three months of the average SNAP benefit.
To address the other group of SNAP recipients at risk, SB3167 would extend eligibility of Illinois’s Victims of Trafficking, Torture and other Serious Crimes program to certain immigrants if they are not eligible for SNAP benefits due to H.R. 1’s new citizenship or immigration status requirements.
The trafficking victim program provides medical, housing, cash and food assistance to non-U.S. citizen victims of human trafficking and other serious crimes. In 2024, the law was narrowed to exclude certain visa seekers, asylum seekers, individuals and those in institutions that cover 50% or more of their daily meals.
Last, SB3276 would create a SNAP response working group to measure the impacts of H.R. 1 on Illinois recipients, gather data on the state’s error rate and issue a report to the General Assembly with recommendations on mitigating the effects of losing federal funding to the program.
“This marks the beginning of a unified statewide effort to ensure that no one in Illinois, the greatest state in this great country, has to worry about where their next meal is going to come from,” Maehr said. “We do this work not alone, not as a community organization in one neighborhood or as a food bank that serves one part of the state. We do this together as volunteers, as service providers, as advocates, as neighbors.”
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.