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A federal appeals court on Monday blocked President Biden’s student-loan forgiveness program, dealing a second serious blow to the plan, which already had been declared unconstitutional by a Texas court.
A three-judge panel for the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis granted a preliminary injunction at the request of six Republican-led states that argued the program threatens future tax revenues and bucks Congress’ authority to cancel loans.
The six-page ruling did not decide the program’s legal merit but rather imposed a nationwide hold on the program pending an appeal of a lower court ruling that allowed the debt-relief plan to go forward.
In the decision, the judges said they could not limit the injunction to the plaintiff states because that would create widespread uncertainty. The judges concluded the program was too unwieldy to limit to the six states that challenged it.
“The equities strongly favor an injunction considering the irreversible impact [the administration’s] debt forgiveness action would have as compared to the lack of harm an injunction would presently impose,” the judges wrote.
