The Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF), created by the 2007 College Cost Reduction and Access Act signed by President George W. Bush, allows college graduates to write-off their loans if they worked as public servants in the government or a nonprofit organization and made at least 10 years (120 months) of repayments. It also caps those payments at 10% of income above 150% of the poverty line.

But "instead of alleviating worker shortages in necessary occupations, the PSLF Program has misdirected tax dollars into activist organizations that not only fail to serve the public interest, but actually harm our national security and American values" through its "subsidization of illegal activities, including illegal immigration, human smuggling, child trafficking, pervasive damage to public property, and disruption of the public order, which threaten the security and stability of the United States," says the executive order, which was released on March 7.

The order, entitled "Restoring Public Service Loan Forgiveness," bars student loan forgiveness to employees of 501(c)3 organizations "whose activities have a substantial illegal purpose." That list includes those who take part in "child abuse, including the chemical and surgical castration or mutilation of children or the trafficking of children to so-called transgender sanctuary States for purposes of emancipation from their lawful parents."

The order also bars "supporting terrorism," violating federal immigration laws, and "engaging in a pattern of aiding and abetting illegal discrimination" often under the banner of advancing "diversity, equity, and inclusion" (DEI).

Organizations that regularly engage in "trespassing, disorderly conduct, public nuisance, vandalism and obstruction of highways"—such as protests illegally blocking highways and intersections—also lose PSLF eligibility.

"The Biden Administration was accused of using the student loan forgiveness program to pay pro-Palestinian and pro-Hamas activists and criminals with taxpayer dollars," added a White House fact sheet accompanying the order.

Much of the focus will go toward defunding organizations that actively assist illegal immigrants en route to, or residing in, the United States. Scholars at the Center for Immigration Studies discovered that "the US State Department's Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM) and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) have been mainlining taxpayer funds" to more than 30 faith-based NGOs that offered "cash debit cards, food, clothing, medical treatment, shelter, and even 'humanitarian transportation' during 2024 to millions of US-bound immigrants in 17 Latin American nations and Mexico." Last April alone, the Biden-Harris administration's Department of Homeland Security doled out $300 million to nonprofits that shelter illegal immigrants through the government's Shelter and Services Program (SSP), administered by FEMA. "Of those recently awarded grants, 35 are NGOs," revealed the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) at the time. Illegal immigrants often stayed at four-star hotels at taxpayer expense, even as the Democratic administration claimed FEMA lacked the funds to care for hurricane-struck US citizens.

Republicans have sought to change the tax-exempt status of NGOs that facilitate the illegal flow of drugs and human traffickers across the border. Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN) recently introduced the Fixing Exemptions for Networks Choosing to Enable Illegal Migration (FENCE) Act (S. 497), which would revoke the tax-exempt status of NGOs that consistently aid illegal immigrants.

"It's absurd that our federal government has been giving tax exemptions and federal funding to NGOs that have helped facilitate record illegal immigration and carry out the far-left's agenda, while cloaked as charities," said Hagerty last month. "President Trump's executive order requiring a review of federal funding to NGOs will expose this malpractice that has occurred for too long. I'm pleased to introduce this legislation that will augment the President's work to hold these NGOs accountable by revoking their tax-exempt statuses." (Screengrab image: via France 24)

Conservative Christians cheered the reforms. "In fact, 25 percent of the US workforce are employed in 'public service' occupations as currently defined, which can include everything from NPR employees to Planned Parenthood," noted Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.), a pastor who chairs the Education and Workforce Committee. "President Trump is stepping up by preventing these activists from receiving windfalls in forgiveness benefits footed by taxpayers."

But teachers unions and liberals charged the president with violating the First Amendment by refusing to underwrite left-wing political activism, even if it skirts, or transgresses, the law. "The president claims to be committed to 'free speech,' but we've quickly discovered that pledge doesn't apply to higher education and now, PSLF," griped Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), who helped craft the Biden administration's public school lockdown policy. "He wants to impose an ideological litmus test antithetical to American values." Mike Pierce, executive director of the liberal Student Borrower Protection Center, decried the order as "an attack on working families everywhere," although the evidence suggests the program benefits graduate students anddoctors.

"Estimates show that the top one-fifth of households owe $3 in student loan debt for every $1 held by the bottom fifth," found the Heritage Foundation, which called for the abolition of PSLF. Critics say student loan "forgiveness" is immoral, because it creates perverse incentives and forces those who never went to college to pay for the bad behavior of those who did.

PSLF has had a troubled history since its formation under the second Bush administration. Users said the program had vague criteria, offered bad advice, and ultimately denied 99% of applications to have their remaining student loan debt expunged. The Biden-Harris administration significantly expanded the number of borrowers whose debt was assumed by taxpayers through the controversial program, from 7,000 when he took office to 1,069,000 borrowers representing $78.5 billion in debt when he left.

Members of the Obama-Biden administration publicly declared they had used the PSLF program to have taxpayers foot the bill as they enacted far-left social policies. "I was lucky enough to land my dream job working in President Obama's White House on the Domestic Policy Council. For nearly the entire second term, I helped push for policies that aimed to bend the arc of the moral universe a little more toward justice — from women's equality to foster care to LGBTQ rights to criminal justice reform," boasted Molly Dillon in 2017. "[T]he Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program made it possible for me [to] use my education for a career in public service without the fear of a lifetime of debt."

By no longer writing off student loan debt, the Trump administration may discourage students from working for left-wing activist groups whose activities further social lawlessness. "If Trump does prohibit some workers from getting student loan forgiveness, there could be larger implications for the impacted nonprofits, with potentially fewer job applicants for open roles at those organizations in the future," reports Newsweek.

Whatever changes will come, they will not take place immediately. The Federal Student Aid office announced Monday that it was "reviewing" the executive order. "The PSLF Program is not changing today, and borrowers do not need to take any action," it said.

Some urge caution in changing the criteria of federal programs, because a future left-wing president could deny loan forgiveness to conservative nonprofits, much as the Obama-Biden administration targeted Tea Party groups for heightened IRS scrutiny. "To avoid this corrosive legal ping pong, all student loan borrowers should be treated the same," wrote Andrew Gillen at the Cato Institute. "Rather than debate about which organizations are eligible for PSLF, we should get rid of PSLF entirely." Subscribe for free to Breaking Christian News here

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

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