A federal judge in Texas has struck down President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness program, calling it illegal.   

  The lawsuit was filed by a conservative group, the Job Creators Network Foundation, in October on behalf of two borrowers who did not qualify for debt relief.   

  Biden’s program was already on hold due to a separate legal challenge.   

  The Biden administration has argued that Congress gave the education secretary the authority to generally pay off student loan debt with a 2003 law known as the HEROES Act.   

  However, the Texas federal judge found that the law did not give the executive branch clear authorization from Congress to create the student loan forgiveness program.   

  “The program is therefore an unconstitutional exercise of Congress’s legislative power and must be vacated,” wrote Judge Mark Pittman, who was nominated by then-President Donald Trump.   

  “In this country, we are not ruled by an all-powerful executive with a pen and a phone,” he continued.   

  A White House spokesman did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment.   

  Nearly 26 million student loan forgiveness applications had been submitted as of last week, but the Biden administration has been barred from canceling any debt since the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals placed an administrative stay on the program on Oct. 21.   

  The appeals court has yet to rule on that lawsuit, brought by six Republican-led states.  A lower court judge dismissed the lawsuit on Oct. 20, ruling that the states lacked standing to bring the lawsuit.   

  The Biden administration faces several other legal challenges to the program.  Superior Court Judge Amy Coney Barrett has denied two separate requests to challenge the program.   

  Under Biden’s plan, single borrowers who earned less than $125,000 in either 2020 or 2021 and married couples or heads of households who made less than $250,000 a year in those years are eligible for up to $10,000 of the federal loan. their loan.   

  If a paid borrower also received a federal Pell Grant while enrolled in college, the individual is eligible for up to $20,000 in debt forgiveness.   

  In the case heard Thursday, one plaintiff did not qualify for the student loan forgiveness program because her loans are not held by the federal government, and the other plaintiff is only eligible for $10,000 in debt relief because she did not receive a Pell grant.   

  They argued that they could not express disagreement with the program’s rules because the administration did not put it through a formal notice-and-comment rulemaking process under the Administrative Procedure Act.   

  “This decision protects the rule of law that requires all Americans to have their voices heard by their federal government,” Elaine Parker, president of the Job Creators Network Foundation, said in a statement Thursday.   

  The advocacy group was founded by Bernie Marcus, a major Trump donor and former Home Depot CEO.   

  Federal student loan payments have been on hold since March 2020 due to a pandemic-related benefit.  They are due to repeat in January.   

  This story has been updated with additional information.