The United States government has stopped accepting applications for student debt relief after a federal judge blocked President Joe Biden’s loan forgiveness plan, according to an announcement on a government website. A Texas judge appointed by former President Donald Trump ruled Thursday that Biden’s plan to cancel hundreds of billions of dollars in student loan debt was illegal and should be scrapped. The Biden administration is appealing the decision. “Courts have issued orders blocking our student debt relief program. As a result, we are currently not accepting applications. We seek to overturn these orders. If you have already applied, we will hold your application,” the statement said. About 26 million Americans have applied for student loan forgiveness, and the US Department of Education has already approved requests from 16 million. The appeal will first be heard by a three-judge panel of the New Orleans-based U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, a court dominated by conservative justices who have blocked other Biden policies. Of the court’s 16 active justices, only four were appointed by Democratic presidents. Mr. Trump appointed six of them. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Thursday that the department would retain information on the requests “so that we can quickly process their relief once we prevail in court.” US District Judge Mark Pittman, a Fort Worth appointee of former Republican President Donald Trump, called the program “an unconstitutional exercise of congressional legislative power” by Mr Biden as he ruled in favor of two borrowers backed by a conservative advocacy group. The case could eventually end up in the US Supreme Court. Conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett has already rejected two requests to block the program in lawsuits from Indiana and Wisconsin, two states from which she is tasked with evaluating emergency appeals.
