Fed. Judge halts minority-Only USDA debt forgiveness program

Wa Examiner: The Department of Agriculture may not use a farmer’s race or ethnicity as a determinant of his or her eligibility for debt forgiveness, a federal judge ruled on Thursday.

Judge Reed O’Connor issued a preliminary injunction to stop the Biden administration from discriminating on account of race or ethnicity in administering a provision of the American Rescue Plan providing “socially disadvantaged” farmers, which the Department of Agriculture considers to be any who are African American, Native American, Hispanic, Asian American, or Pacific Islander, with loan forgiveness of up to 120% of their federal Farm Service Agency loan balances as of Jan. 1.

The injunction came at the request of Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller and two classes of petitioning farmers, which O’Connor certified in his Thursday order, who argued the program was racially discriminatory against nonminority farmers.

“Plaintiffs held qualifying FSA loans on January 1, 2021, but are white, making them ineligible for the funds under the [American Rescue Plan Act],” the plaintiffs said, arguing in an April 26 class action complaint filed in federal district court in the Northern District of Texas that the loan forgiveness program violates the Constitution and other federal equal protection laws. more