The United States Justice temporarily blocked this Friday the cancellation of student debt decreed by the country’s president, Democrat Joe Biden, which was scheduled to become effective as of next week.
An order issued by the US Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals blocked the remission until at least Monday, the time the government has to argue that the program should go ahead as planned.
Once the Government presents its argument, the plaintiff (six states governed by the Republican Party) will have until Tuesday to present its counter argument.
This Friday’s order is the result of the appeal filed by these six states (Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and South Carolina) after Judge Henry Autrey of the Eastern District Court of Missouri issued another on Thursday. order in which it considered that the plaintiffs are not a party harmed by the cancellation of the debt and therefore rejected their blocking request.
The states had sued the government and asked that the remission be blocked, considering that Biden had overstepped the limits with this decision and that he lacked the power to decree something like this unilaterally.
At the end of August, Biden announced that he will forgive part of the debt that millions of university students contracted with the federal government in order to pay for their studies, in a nod to the young vote with just over two months to go before the legislative elections.
The announcement came after months of internal debate within the government and after student debt payments were halted in 2020 as a pandemic relief measure.
"Delivering on one of my campaign promises, my Administration announces a plan to give working and middle-class families some breathing room."Biden noted.
The president reported the cancellation of up to 10,000 dollars of debt per student, but this measure will only benefit those who earn less than 125,000 dollars a year or those who, being married, have an income of less than 250,000 dollars a year.
In an attempt to help lower-income students, Biden also noted that $20,000 in debt incurred by recipients of Pell grants will be canceled, benefiting a large number of low-income Hispanic and African-American students.
