The Daily Fuckup

The Biden administration on Friday opened the first phase of its effort to unwind the Migrant Protection Protocols, the Trump-era policy known as Remain in Mexico. Officials began processing a limited group of asylum-seekers who had been required to wait in Mexico for their U.S. immigration hearings. That was the start of a staged rollout, not a full shutdown of the program on day one.

Under the policy, many asylum-seekers were sent to Mexican border cities while their cases moved through U.S. immigration courts. The program became one of the Trump administration’s most visible border measures and drew sharp criticism from immigrant advocates and legal challengers, who said it exposed vulnerable people to danger and warped the asylum process. Supporters said it was intended to reduce fraud and ease pressure at the border.

The first phase did not apply to everyone in the program. It covered an initial cohort of eligible cases while the administration worked through court schedules, coordination with Mexican officials and the logistics of moving people into the United States. Reports on the first day described 25 asylum-seekers as part of that opening group.

The administration said the change would happen in stages. That mattered because the policy had affected thousands of people and depended on border processing rules, hearing dates and cross-border coordination. Ending it required more than a statement from Washington; it required moving individual cases through a system built to keep applicants outside the country.

The shift was an early test of whether Biden could turn a campaign promise into an operational change at the border. It did not end the broader immigration fight, and it did not erase the legal and administrative damage left by the earlier policy. But on Feb. 19, 2021, the government began the unwind rather than completing it, putting the first eligible cases back on a path into the United States.