(TNND) — The U.S. Department of Agriculture told state agencies that handle food stamp programs to tighten up their eligibility checks to prevent undocumented immigrants from getting benefits intended to help low-income Americans.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, is not and has never been available to illegal immigrants, a USDA memo stated.

And the USDA officials said they wanted to ensure that tax dollars do not fund SNAP benefits to illegal immigrants.

The memo was sent to state SNAP agencies to comply with an executive order from President Donald Trump, which sought to examine and bolster eligibility verification systems to prevent ineligible, undocumented immigrants from accessing taxpayer benefits.

Trump’s order said the administration wanted to prevent benefits from “acting as a magnet and fueling illegal immigration” to the U.S.

The USDA asked states to take a list of steps to verify the identity of SNAP applicants and ensure they’re eligible.

"President Trump has made it clear that American taxpayers will no longer subsidize illegal aliens," Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said in a news release. "We are stewards of taxpayer dollars, and it is our duty to ensure states confirm the identity and verify the immigration status of SNAP applicants. USDA’s nutrition programs are intended to support the most vulnerable Americans. To allow those who broke our laws by entering the United States illegally to receive these benefits is outrageous."

The USDA memo noted over $10 billion in improper SNAP payments in fiscal 2023, with unverified citizenship as one of seven reasons given in a Government Accountability Office report.

Chris Bernard, the president and CEO of Hunger Free Oklahoma, said the memo didn’t tell state SNAP agencies to do anything they aren’t or shouldn’t already be doing.

“In the grand scheme of things, I'm not sure it changes much other than just them saying this is a priority for us,” Bernard said.

Hunger Free Oklahoma provides SNAP outreach and enrollment assistance.

Bernard and his team are on the ground with SNAP applicants.

And he agreed that improper SNAP payments are a problem.

But he said illegal immigrants trying to cheat the system aren’t a big concern.

Most improper SNAP payments stem from confusion over things like household size and income due to the program’s complicated guidelines.

He said most improper payments are due to mistakes or confusion, not fraud.

“You don't want to be paying money to folks who don't qualify, but that really is a result of overregulation of the program in the first place and making it so complicated that people don't understand what you're asking for, or even understand if they're eligible,” he said.

Bernard said his concern is that SNAP-eligible people won’t use their benefits, either out of confusion or fear, if there are immigrants in their household.

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Ernesto Sagás, an expert in politics and U.S. immigration policies who teaches at Colorado State University, said there probably are some undocumented immigrants who try and game the system for taxpayer-funded food assistance.

But he doesn’t imagine it’s a rampant problem.

“If you have ever applied or know people that have applied for state benefits or government benefits, you know how cumbersome the process is, how many checks there are, how much documentation,” Sagás said.

Sagás said this USDA action is part of the larger “attrition tactics” used by the administration that are intended to make America less appealing for immigrants.

The administration wants to force immigrants to leave or to think twice before coming here in the first place.

Its beefed-up border security, ramped-up immigration arrests, hardline rhetoric and more are all sending the message to migrants that “there's no welcome mat anymore,” Sagás said.