The White House issued a new executive order on Friday, explained by a Fact Sheet with the misleading title “President Donald J. Trump Restores Public Service Loan Forgiveness.”

White House bans loan forgiveness for so-called ‘anti-American activists’

The document began, “Today, President Donald J. Trump signed an Executive Order to end taxpayer-funded student loan forgiveness for anti-American activists.” According to the announcement, the president’s executive order places restrictions on the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, making applicants ineligible for “activities that advance illegal immigration, terrorism, child abuse, discrimination, and public disruptions.”

PSLF restrictions raise First Amendment concerns, likely lawsuits

The New York Times reported that PSLF, a program created under President George W. Bush’s administration, currently offers student loan forgiveness for qualified individuals working in public service areas such as education or healthcare and have made 10 years’ worth of qualifying payments on their loans. Critics of Trump’s moves to limit PSLF argue that the executive order will illegally punish people based on their political activities, such as support for diversity initiatives, trans students or undocumented immigrants. The matter will likely end up sparking lawsuits. According to Business Insider, Aaron Ament, president of the organization Student Defense, reacted to the news by stating, “Threatening to punish hardworking Americans for their employers’ perceived political views is about as flagrant a violation of the First Amendment as you can imagine.” Ament, whose organization represents student borrowers, declared, “If the Trump Administration follows through on this threat, they can plan to see us in court.”

Reversing Biden agenda on student loan forgiveness

The restrictions also represent another way Trump seeks to roll back his predecessors’ policies, according to The Associated Press. President Joe Biden made student loan forgiveness a significant part of his domestic policy agenda, announcing he had granted forgiveness to over 1 million applicants, a massive increase over the 7,000 people granted forgiveness during the first Trump term. Biden achieved much of this increase by expanding the Public Service Loan Forgiveness eligibility requirements, even as his efforts to broaden forgiveness even more but faced pushback from the courts that limited his ability to write off student debt.

Now, Trump is making student loan forgiveness even more restrictive, fulfilling an agenda of conservatives who oppose the program. Even if the issue goes to court, Trump’s expansive use of executive orders makes it likely that he will continue to push the issue.