Conservatives sue to block debt forgiveness for student borrowers in decade-old program – National & International News – MON 7Aug2023

Conservatives sue to stop debt forgiveness for student borrowers. 

Advocates, asylum seekers sue Customs and Border Protection over buggy app. 

West Africa on brink of regional war after Niger coup. 

NATIONAL NEWS

Conservatives sue to stop debt forgiveness for student borrowers

Last month, the Biden administration moved to rectify problems that had wrongly denied student loan forgiveness to millions of borrowers. The Obama-era program promised debt forgiveness to low-income borrowers after 20 to 25 years. It was meant to be a lifeline to the poorest borrowers who had some of the oldest active loans still in the program. But instead of placing borrowers into the program, private loan servicers pushed borrowers into forbearance when they were unable to make payments. This put borrowers behind when these months should have counted towards the the timeline of their loan forgiveness. As a result, only 37 of 9 million eligible borrowers ever received loan forgiveness under the program.

The fix would grant immediate loan forgiveness totaling about $39 billion for over 800,000 borrowers, including 9,500 Mississippians. Since this fix was meant to correct oversights and errors in an existing program, now 13 years old, the Supreme Court’s recent ruling blocking a separate Biden loan forgiveness program would not apply.

Now, conservative groups are suing to block this effort at student loan forgiveness. Despite the program being over a decade old, the groups claim the administration is overstepping its Congressional authority by fixing an existing program that never functioned as it was meant to. The Education Department called the suit “a desperate attempt from right wing special interests to keep hundreds of thousands of borrowers in debt.”

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Advocates, asylum seekers sue Customs and Border Protection over buggy app

Immigrant advocate groups and individual asylum seekers are suing over the CBP One app, which rolled out earlier this year. Would-be migrants at the border have to use the app to make appointments to apply for asylum.

Ever since the rollout in March, the app has had numerous issues. For example, its facial recognition function often rejects or fails to recognize photos of darker-skinned applicants. The app will only work on up-to-date smartphones that many migrants cannot afford. Even when it is “working”, it frequently crashes or fails to process submissions, giving users indecipherable error messages.

Advocates for migrant rights say that the app has created a new and unlawful barrier for those seeking asylum. Ironically, the state of Texas is also suing the government over CBP One, claiming the app makes it too easy for migrants to apply for asylum.

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INTERNATIONAL NEWS

West Africa on brink of regional war after Niger coup

Last week, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), a bloc of 15 West African countries, gave one of its own member states Niger one week to reinstate its elected leader Mohammed Bazoum following a military coup. The bloc threatened to intervene militarily if Niger’s coup leaders did not comply. The deadline passed at midnight last night, and the junta remained defiant. Instead, Niger’s military leadership closed the country’s airspace, essentially daring its neighbors to invade.

Other countries in the region governed by military juntas, including Mali and Burkina Faso, had warned that they would come to Niger’s defense if Ecowas countries invaded. Meanwhile, Nigeria, Senegal and Ivory Coast have pledge troops to join Ecowas forces.

Countries in both camps are rushing to join battlelines while others have been more hesitant, seemingly waiting to see who will blink first. For now, the threat of a region-wide conflict still looms.

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