Court blocks Biden-Harris student debt forgiveness plan

U.S. District Judge James Randal Hall temporarily suspended the Biden-Harris Administration's plan to cancel the student debts of more than 25 million Americans. The magistrate thus granted a partial victory to the seven Republican attorneys general who brought the debt forgiveness case to the bench.

"Today is a huge victory for every working American who won’t have to foot the bill for someone else’s Ivy League debt," celebrated Andrew Bailey, Missouri attorney general. "We will continue to lead the way for working Americans who are being preyed upon by unelected federal bureaucrats in Washington D.C."

In addition to Missouri, the U.S. Attorney's Offices of Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, North Dakota and Ohio accused the Department of Education and the government of putting the plan in place under the shadows, with no published rules, even directing federal contractors to begin canceling debts "immediately" in the first week of September.

This is the third time, they claimed, that Education Secretary Miguel Cardona has "has unlawfully tried to mass cancel hundreds of billions of dollars in loans." "Courts stopped him the first two times, when he tried to do so openly," they recalled, alluding to two Supreme Court rulings (the most recent just over a week ago) and added that he was now trying to do the same "through cloak and dagger."

The magistrate conceded that the complainants have a "substantial likelihood of success" in both their argument that Education had ignored proper deadlines for implementing the measure and that it was probably overreaching.

"Another win against the Biden-Harris Administration," wrote Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody, noting that the judge agreed that the rule would impact taxpayers' pocketbooks. Her Arkansas counterpart, Tim Griffin, noted that they had succeeded in thwarting another attempt by the government to "go around Congress," reminding him that only congressmen have "the authority to change the law."

The mood in the White House was less celebratory: "We strongly disagree with today’s ruling by the Georgia district court, which is an overreach based on false claims fueled by Republican elected officials who will stop at nothing to prevent their own constituents from getting just a little bit of breathing room in their daily lives," spokesman Angelo Fernandez-Hernandez said, in remarks picked up by The Washington Post.

Hernandez assured that the department headed by Cardona had followed the proper processes and promised that it would continue to try to cancel student debts. According to different reports, the plan is expected to be finalized this fall.

Initially, the lockout will last 14 days. The court scheduled a hearing for Wednesday, September 18.

Read the full court order