Court temporarily halts Biden’s student debt forgiveness plan

A federal appeals court has temporarily blocked the President Joe Biden’s imminent plans to cancel federal student loan debt.

The 11th hour move comes after 22 million borrowers have applied for the debt cancellation program announced in August. The administration had stated that the program could go into effect early next week.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit granted an administrative stay on Friday evening. The Washington Post reports that borrowers will have to wait until a panel of conservative judges rule in the case being argued by Nebraska, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas and South Carolina — a coalition of Republican-led states. On Thursday, a federal district judge in Missouri dismissed the lawsuit for lack of standing.

On Thursday, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett denied a separate request in Wisconsin to stop the debt cancellation program.

Biden, campaigning for the upcoming midterm elections, spoke out against the suits in a speech at Delaware State University, a historically Black university.

“Republican members of Congress and Republican governors are doing everything they can to deny this relief, even to their own constituents,” he said.