Public Citizen just filed another lawsuit against the Trump regime.

We filed this suit on Tuesday, November 4, which was Donald Trump’s 289th day
back in office. This is our 22nd lawsuit against his administration in that
time. That’s one lawsuit every 13 days. And we’re not done yet.

This latest lawsuit is intended to prevent the administration from denying
student loan forgiveness — for potentially thousands and thousands of borrowers
— just because Trump and his henchmen don’t like the politics of some of the
places these loan recipients work or the fact that the work they do helps
everyday Americans.

Here’s more about the case:

* In 2007, Congress passed bipartisan legislation — which was then signed into
law by President George W. Bush (a Republican, if memory serves) — to create
the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program.

* The PSLF program was established to help people choose to go into, and stay
in, public service work. It is meant to help many, many kinds of workers,
including: public school teachers, first responders, social workers, military
personnel, librarians, government workers, people who work at homeless
shelters and food banks, nurses and other employees at nonprofit hospitals,
people who provide services to survivors of domestic violence. The list goes
on and on.

* This is no handout. To qualify, borrowers must work a full ten years in a full-time public service job (defined as most federal, state, and local
government jobs and jobs with specific kinds of nonprofit organizations) and
they have to make regular loan payments that entire time. Only then can they
apply to have any remaining debt forgiven (and many borrowers have been
improperly denied even after fulfilling the requirements).

* There have been problems with how the program has been run. But it is still
an important way to encourage people to go into public service work, where
pay can be less than what the private sector might offer.

* Rather than try to make the PSLF program run more smoothly and help more
Americans, the Trump administration wants to essentially punish borrowers who
work for government agencies or nonprofits the regime doesn’t like.

* Back in March — amid a flurry of cruel, senseless, or outright illegal
executive orders — Trump directed the Education Department to deny loan
forgiveness under the PSLF program to any borrowers who work for employers
engaged in “substantial illegal activities.” That might sound reasonable, but only for as long as it takes to realize two things.

* One, deciding what “substantial illegal activities” means is exclusively up
to lackeys Trump has installed at the Education Department — which, remember,
is being run by the billionaire former professional wrestling magnate and
MAGA extremist Linda McMahon.

* Two, the Trump regime has already made it very clear that it considers
certain things — like helping immigrants, helping trans kids, valuing
diversity, and organizing Americans to exercise their First Amendment rights
to criticize or protest the regime — to be “illegal.”

* Public Citizen and co-counsel Student Defense are representing these
plaintiffs in this case: Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights; the American
Immigration Council; The Door — A Center of Alternatives, Inc.; the League of
United Latin American Citizens (LULAC).

As Public Citizen’s Cormac Early, lead attorney on the case, noted to the
national media: “Congress created PSLF to support those who work in public
service jobs, not to let the president play favorites. The Trump administration
should not be allowed to use a program designed to reward public service as a
weapon against its political enemies.”

MORE ABOUT TAKING THE TRUMP REGIME TO COURT

Public Citizen is doing everything we can — within our modest means — to fight
what the Trump regime is doing to our country. It’s David and Goliath for sure,
but we will never back down. Even where we haven’t (yet) notched definitive
victories in court, we are slowing down the regime and making it work a lot
harder in pursuit of its desire for absolute power.

This is the 22nd lawsuit we have filed (so far) against the administration since
Trump returned to power. Are these lawsuits alone enough to fully defeat Trump
and MAGA? Of course not. But are they a meaningful part of the pushback needed
to collectively save our country? No doubt about it.

What you and Public Citizen are doing together matters. What hundreds of other
organizations, big and small, are doing matters. What millions upon millions of
our fellow Americans are doing matters. We believe that to our core. We take
solace in that. And we draw inspiration from that. We hope you do, too.

If you can, please donate today to support Public Citizen’s work standing up to
the Trump regime. [[link removed]]

Anything you can chip in — $5 or $25, $50 or $100, $500 or even more — will help
at such a critical moment. [[link removed]]

CONTRIBUTE NOW [[link removed]]
Or join our popular Monthly Giving program (if you haven’t already) to help make
sure we have the ongoing financial resources to fight Trump day after day after
day. [[link removed]]

If you’ve donated to Public Citizen already, thank you. If a donation is not
right, we understand. Either way, thank you for being part of Public Citizen.

For progress,

- Lisa Gilbert & Robert Weissman, Co-Presidents of Public Citizen


Public Citizen | 1600 20th Street NW | Washington DC 20009 | Unsubscribe
[[link removed]]