DOJ Defends USDA’s Decision to Forgive Debt for Black and Other Socially Disadvantaged Farmers
The Department of Justice filed court documents Friday in defense of USDA’s plan to forgive debt for socially disadvantaged farmers.
The filing is in response to Judge William Griesbach’s decision to halt the payments earlier this month. The Wisconsin's Eastern District ruling granted a temporary restraining order in response to a lawsuit filed by the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty.
The group that filed the original lawsuit represents 12 farmers who called the plan unconstitutional. The federal judge ordered the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to stop forgiving loans on the basis of race under a novel effort included in the American Rescue Plan relief package.
However, the DOJ says the farmers who filed the lawsuit can’t show irreparable harm. The documents also state the farmers could “obtain any monetary relief they seek at the conclusion of this case if they are entitled to it.” DOJ argued that to delay the debt forgiveness for socially disadvantaged farmers would further harm minority farmers.
USDA had until Friday to respond to the court’s temporary restraining order, and both USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack and USDA spokespeople had already pledged to fight the case vigorously. Farm Journal Washington Correspondent Jim Wiesemeyer reports Judge Griesbach has until July 23, 2021, to decide on a preliminary injunction.
The DOJ argued a preliminary injunction should be denied as, “Plaintiffs are white farmers who object to the government’s effort to remedy the lingering effects of discrimination, because the government used a race-conscious remedy to do so. They seek to further delay pandemic relief designated for minority farmers, despite failing to provide any basis to question Congress’s conclusion that minority farmers were largely left out of prior relief efforts.”
The court battle surrounds the USDA loan forgiveness program from USDA that is aimed to provide $4 billion to pay off direct or guaranteed loans given to farmers of color as part of the Biden administration's COVID-19 pandemic relief plan. Vilsack has said the funding was meant to address "the cumulative effect" of systemic racism from the Department of Agriculture. It's designed to pay up to 120% of direct or guaranteed farm loan balances for Black, American Indian, Hispanic, Asian American or Pacific Islander farmers.
According to USDA data, of the 3.4 million farmers currently in the United States, 45,000 are black, which is down from 1 million a century ago.
In March, Vilsack stated 99% of the $38 billion paid out in CFAP so far had gone to white farmers, with just 0.1% delivered to black farmers.
“Maybe we need to make sure we did everything we need to do to make sure that folks had a chance to participate,” Vilsack said in March. “So, 99% of $38 billion went to one group. And surely those folks are the big producers, and no question that they're entitled to help. But my guess is if we had better outreach, those percentages would be different. I don't know how much different they'd be. But I'm pretty sure that black farmers would get more than one tenth of 1% of the resource.”
