A federal appeals court has rejected the Biden administration’s bid to freeze a Texas judge’s ruling that President Joe Biden’s plan to cancel student loan debt was illegal.
In a Nov. 30 ruling, the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied the Biden administration’s request to put on hold a judge’s Nov. 10 order vacating the $400 billion student debt relief program in a lawsuit brought forward by conservative advocacy group Job Creators Network Foundation (JCNF).
“The Fifth Circuit correctly rejected the Biden administration’s attempt to reinstate the student loan bailout pending appeal,” JCNF president Elaine Parker said in a statement.
“Despite the administration being unlikely to prevail on the merits of this case, it had hoped to allow the program to move forward so that it could get money out the door to debtors and claim victory,” she continued.
Parker added that only by succeeding on appeal and permanently blocking Biden’s student debt bailout will the JCNF consider its initiative a success, adding that the advocacy group will continue to “strongly fight the Biden administration’s attempt to restart its illegal student loan bailout program.”
The White House had no immediate comment but the administration has said that if the 5th Circuit declined to halt the Texas judge’s order blocking the student debt wipeout, it would ask the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene.
‘Erroneous Injunction’?
The decision by Fort Worth, Texas-based U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman was one of two nationally that has prevented the Department of Education from pressing ahead with student debt relief to millions of borrowers.
The second was a Nov. 10 decision by the St. Louis-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit, which froze Biden’s debt forgiveness plan, prompting the federal government to stop receiving applications.
By Tom Ozimek
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