The Biden administration opened applications for student loan forgiveness last month and planned to begin implementing the relief this month, but those actions were halted after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit temporarily blocked the measure. Of the multiple court cases across the country, a challenge by six GOP-led states is the only one so far that has succeeded in halting the program, at least for now. The administration plans to forgive up to $10,000 in federal student loans for borrowers making less than $125,000 a year and up to $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients. But the 8th Circuit issued an injunction two weeks ago to prevent the distribution of relief while it hears arguments about whether states have standing to sue the plan. A federal district judge previously ruled that the six Republican attorneys general who sued lacked standing because they could not prove that Biden’s program directly harmed their states. The 8th Circuit ended up halting the relief program to give both parties time to submit their briefs before fully deciding whether the pardon should be suspended until the entire case is settled. Abby Safroth, director of the National Consumer Law Center’s Student Borrower Assistance Project, told The Hill that borrowers will “get a decision” from the 8th Circuit soon after those updates have been filed. Legal experts said the court’s ruling on whether the states have standing could be key to whether the administration is allowed to provide relief in the next two weeks or months from now, if that happens. Michael Sant’Ambrogio, a law professor and senior associate dean for faculty and academic affairs at Michigan State University, said a decision on the states’ motion for a preliminary injunction should be issued soon, but the litigation is ” rarely fast” if the case goes to trial. “If they grant the preliminary injunction, I’d say all bets are off,” he said. Biden told Nexstar’s Reshad Hudson last week that he expected the relief to be disbursed within two weeks, but experts said that is only possible if the order is rejected. Sant’Ambrogio said the Supreme Court has increasingly reduced the executive branch’s power to take action without clear direction from Congress, and the states’ challenge could succeed on the basis that Congress never expressly authorized the broad pardon . “This is a very bold move by the administration, and there are certainly some questions, given the way the Supreme Court has interpreted the authority of the executive and federal agencies,” Sant’Ambrogio said. While Shafroth acknowledged that the court cases could drag on for a long time, she doesn’t expect challenges to the student debt relief to last long or for the courts to halt the program while they rule. He said it was “unusual for courts to order a party to do or not do something before deciding a case”. “Normally, a judge would have to find that the government was breaking the law before ordering them to stop,” Shafroth said. The six states that sued — Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and South Carolina — pointed to multiple failed attempts by Congress to cancel the debt in recent years in their complaint as evidence of a lack of congressional authority for government action. . If the appeals court decides the states have standing and grants the preliminary injunction, their filings on the merits of the case won’t be until mid-December. The government would then have 30 days to respond, and the states would have an additional 21 days to respond to that rebuttal, which would almost certainly force the case to move into next year. A COVID-19 pandemic-era pause on borrowers making payments on their loans is set to expire Dec. 31, but the Biden administration could seek to extend it again. The administration urged borrowers to apply for relief by mid-November to ensure they receive it in time for the moratorium to expire. “It’s hard for me to imagine that this will be completed in less than at least a month. It could potentially be two or three months before the order is finally lifted,” said Thomas Bennett, associate professor of law at the University of Missouri. “And of course, if the appeals courts agree with the states that have a right, then it could be a lot more.” He said both sides could appeal a potential 8th Circuit ruling to the Supreme Court on an expedited basis, adding that the high court might be more likely to take it if the federal government loses at the appeals level. He said the Supreme Court may also be more likely to take up cases challenging the program if several appeals courts issue different rulings on the program’s constitutionality. Shafroth pointed out that the Supreme Court has already declined to take part in a case related to the debt relief program, Brown County Taxpayers Association v. Biden, and she did not expect them to get involved in Garrison v. Department of Education — a prediction that was proven correct on Friday. when Judge Amy Coney Barrett denied an emergency attempt to block the pardon program in the Garrison case. “It remains to be seen whether any of the other cases will go to the Supreme Court,” Shafroth said. Bennett, responding to Biden’s prediction, said: “It’s not likely that there will be any real debt relief in the next couple of weeks.” “But the next four weeks, the next six weeks, I think it becomes more and more plausible if they can win,” he added, referring to management. Supreme Court case is big clash over Native American adoptions Barrett again refuses emergency bid to block student loan forgiveness plan While Shafroth said it’s hard to put an exact timeline on when this could be resolved in court, she said she doesn’t expect a long time frame for rulings. “The parties are very clearly interested, on both sides, in quickly resolving these cases, so they are agreeing to rapid briefing schedules. Courts also recognize the high importance of these cases and dispose of them expeditiously,” he said. “I think, hopefully, we should get everything resolved pretty soon,” Shafroth said.
