Relief payments to Black farmers on hold amid lawsuits backed by former Trump aides, conservative

Relief payments to Black farmers on hold amid lawsuits backed by former Trump aides, conservative groups


WASHINGTON—Former Trump administration officials and conservative and libertarian nonprofits have launched lawsuits to block federal relief funds aimed at Black and minority farmers—a development that House Agriculture Committee Chairman David Scott of Georgia calls “an evil system at work here.”

Suits have been filed in Florida, Wisconsin and Texas that say it’s unconstitutional to direct COVID-19 relief funds to Black farmers, who make up 1 percent of all farmers. The $4 billion in the American Rescue Plan is intended to help relieve debt the farmers accrued from decades of systematic discrimination in USDA lending.

A judge in a Florida federal court issued a nationwide injunction Wednesday, preventing the U.S. Department of Agriculture from issuing grants to those minority farmers. U.S. District Judge Marcia Morales Howard said the agency could still prepare to deliver debt relief until the program is found “constitutionally permissible.”

Scott, a Democrat, in an interview with States Newsroom was highly critical of the legal challenge, and questioned how any judge could deny the history of discrimination against Black farmers in the U.S.

Read more: https://www.floridaphoenix.com/2021/06/26/relief-payments-to-black-farmers-on-hold-amid-lawsuits-backed-by-former-trump-aides-conservative-groups/