The legal uncertainty has created new and unexpected financial strains for black farmers, many of whom have been unable to invest in their businesses due to the ongoing uncertainty over their debt burden. It also poses a political problem for Mr. Biden, who was brought to power by black voters and now must deliver on promises to improve their fortunes.
The law was intended to end years of discrimination that non-white farmers have endured, including land theft and the rejection of credit applications by banks and the federal government. The program provided support to approximately 15,000 borrowers who receive loans directly from the federal government or whose bank loans are guaranteed by the USDA. Those eligible included ranchers and ranchers who were victims of racial or ethnic prejudice, including Blacks, Native Americans, Alaskan Native, Asian American, Pacific Islander, or Hispanic.
After the initiative was rolled out last year, it encountered rapid resistance.
Banks were not happy that the loans would be repaid early, which meant that they no longer paid interest. Groups of white farmers in Wisconsin, North Dakota, Oregon and Illinois sued the Department of Agriculture, arguing that offering debt relief based on skin color is discriminatory, suggesting that a successful black farmer could get debt forgiven, while a struggling white farm could go. out of order. America First Legal, a group led by Stephen Miller, the former Trump administration official, has filed a lawsuit with a similar argument in the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas.
Last June, before the money started flowing, a federal judge in Florida blocked the program because it applied “strictly on racial grounds,” regardless of any other factor.
The delays have angered black farmers who tried to help the Biden administration and Democrats in Congress. They argue that the law was poorly written and that the White House is not defending it vigorously enough in court for fear that a legal defeat could undermine other race-based policies.
Those concerns were heightened late last year when the government sent thousands of letters to minority farmers who were behind on their loan payments, warning that they were facing foreclosure. According to the Department of Agriculture, the letters were automatically sent to all borrowers who were in arrears with their loans, including about a third of the 15,000 socially disadvantaged farmers who had applied for debt relief.
Leonard Jackson, a rancher in Muskogee, Oklahoma, received such a letter despite the USDA telling him he wouldn’t have to pay a loan because his $235,000 debt would be paid off by the government. The letter was shocking to Mr. Jackson, whose father, a wheat and soybean farmer, had had his farm machinery blocked by the government years earlier. The prospect of losing his 33 cows, barn and trailer was unimaginable.
