A legal group founded by Stephen Miller, a White House adviser under former President Donald Trump, has filed a lawsuit accusing the Biden administration of “discriminating against white farmers” in its U.S. aid program, NBC reported Tuesday.
Miller, who was the designer of Former President Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant and immigrant family “separation” policy, declared in a statement announcing the legal action Wednesday that “we stand by Martin Luther King’s immortal statement that Americans ‘should not be judged by color, but by character.'”
Miller claimed that the purpose of the federal lawsuit filed by America First Legal was to “defend Martin Luther King’s vision, the U.S. constitutional order, and the civil rights of all citizens.” The group is understood to have been set up by Mr Miller and Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff under the Trump administration, to challenge “radical leftist activists”.
On Monday, the group filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller in an unofficial capacity. The lawsuit seeks about $5 billion in loan relief for “socially disadvantaged” farmers and ranchers under the $1.9 trillion relief package Biden signed last month.
“The U.S. Department of Agriculture interprets this statement as: African-Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, Alaska Native Americans, Asian-Americans, and Pacific Islanders … But white farmers and ranchers are not covered by the definition of ‘socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers’, making them ineligible for assistance with these federal programs. ”
“These racial exclusions are clearly unconstitutional,” the lawsuit states. The litigant also held that, if the Court did not agree, “then it should at least declare that, as a statutory interpretation, the term ‘socially vulnerable’ must be interpreted to include all types of ethnic groups subjected to racial and ethnic prejudice, including, but not limited to, Irish, Italian, German, Jewish and Eastern European.” ”
“We are reviewing this lawsuit and working with the Department of Justice,” the USDA said in a statement to NBC News. During this review, we will continue to implement debt relief for eligible socially disadvantaged borrowers under the American Bailout Act. ”
The White House said in March that parts of the bill would “provide $4 billion in debt relief to farmers of color to help socially disadvantaged farmers pay off their heavy debts.” ”
The Washington Post, citing USDA data, reports that only 45,000 of America’s 3.4 million farmers are black, up from 1 million a century ago.
A study earlier this year by the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit activist group, found that nearly 97 percent of the $9.2 billion the USDA had allocated to farmers as of October went to white farmers. The report also shows that white farmers earn about four times as much as black farmers. According to the group, the $28 billion in aid paid to farmers during Mr. Trump’s trade war with China is even more pronounced, with 99 percent going to white farmers.
Reported that the lawsuit is the “U.S. priority law” support for the second lawsuit. The name “America First Law” is taken from one of Mr. Trump’s campaign slogans. Its first pending legal action is a challenge to the Biden administration’s immigration policies.
Mr. Trump announced earlier this month that he supported Mr. Miller and Mr. Meadows’s efforts to “turn things around” in court. “The era of unilateral legal surrender must end,” Mr. Trump added.
