U.S. President Joe Biden looks on before speaking ahead of the 30th anniversary of the Violence Against Women Act on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC, September 12, 2024.
Andrew Caballero-Reynolds | AFP | Getty Images
A federal judge has extended a temporary restraining order against the Biden administration’s latest student loan forgiveness plan, threatening the White House’s hopes of providing financial relief to tens of millions of Americans before the Nov. 5 presidential election.
U.S. District Judge Randal Hall, appointed by former Republican President George W. Bush, said Wednesday he would uphold the order blocking the Biden administration from canceling student debt for another 14 days.
In the meantime, Hall said the court will consider the plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction against Biden’s relief plan, as well as the Biden administration’s request to dismiss the case.
The continued restraining order is the latest setback in the Biden administration’s efforts to cancel federal student loans. President Joe Biden began promising to provide student loan relief during his 2020 campaign, but Republican legal challenges have consistently thwarted his efforts.
The move follows a lawsuit filed earlier this month by seven Republican-led states against the president’s relief plan. The states — Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, North Dakota and Ohio — said the U.S. Department of Education’s new debt cancellation measure, like its previous attempts, was illegal.
States have also accused the Biden administration of trying to secretly implement the plan before the final rule on the program is released in October, which would violate rules regarding the timing of new regulations.
However, a Biden administration official told CNBC on September 11 that the Education Department has no plans to begin canceling up to $147 billion in student debt for as many as 25 million Americans until it is authorized to do so.
Hall first issued a temporary restraining order against Biden’s debt plan on Sept. 5, shortly after the states filed suit.
Biden’s plan would have canceled student debt for four groups of borrowers: those who owed more than they originally borrowed, those who had already been paying off their debt for decades, students at low-value schools and those who qualified for loan forgiveness under an existing program but didn’t apply.
According to an estimate from the Center for American Progress, as many as 3 in 4 federal student loan holders would benefit from the measure, if it were rolled into the Biden administration’s previous debt relief efforts. Over the summer, the Biden administration sent emails to millions of student loan borrowers, warning them that debt cancellation was on the way.
During the September 10 presidential debate, former President Donald Trump compared Democratic nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris’ promise to protect abortion rights in the United States to Democrats’ promise to cancel student debt.
“That’s just talk,” Trump said. “You know what that reminds me of? When they said they were going to end student loans and it turned into a total disaster.”
“They couldn’t even get a student loan,” he added later. “They made fun of young people and a lot of other people who had loans. They’ll never be able to get that loan.”
But it was Republican officials who tried to block the aid, and Republican judges who ruled against the aid programs, said Luke Herrine, an assistant professor of law at the University of Alabama.
When the Supreme Court struck down Biden’s first large-scale attempt to cancel student loans in June 2023, the 6-3 vote was split along ideological lines, with liberal justices voting to uphold the program.
