February 19, 2021

Forced to Wait by Trump, First Group of Asylum Seekers Finally Allowed to Enter the United States

In Tijuana, Mexico a group of migrants gather in a plaza near the border crossing./AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

On Friday, the first group of asylum seekers forced to wait in Mexico for much of the last two years under a Trump-era doctrine began to enter the United States. Their arrival marks an official end to Trump’s callous “Remain in Mexico” policy. And the start of the government’s processing of approximately 25,000 active asylum cases for the people marooned in border cities. 

People who were placed under Migrant Protection Protocols and who still have an open case can now enter their information on this website. If they’re eligible, they receive a date and time for their appointment at one of three ports of entry. On Friday it was only San Diego, but the plan is to expand to the ports at Brownsville Monday and El Paso by February 26.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is helping triage in Mexico and will help administer the required COVID-19 test for those who are called to be processed. Once in the United States, asylum seekers will be allowed to continue their asylum cases in the immigration court closest to their final destination. Organizations like the Jewish Family Services of San Diego plan to assist people after they enter. 

The Department of Homeland Security said that it was also planning on processing a “limited number of individuals” in San Diego on Friday who were “registered ahead of time by international organizations.”

On a call with reporters last week, officials with the Biden administration said none of the asylum seekers who are let in will be placed in immigration detention facilities, they will be given alternatives to detention including wearing an ankle monitor. 

The announcement of this plan last week caused some confusion, seen this morning at a migrant camp south of Texas and at the San Diego border. Anyone who wasn’t placed in MPP and whose case isn’t active, does not qualify for this “phase one” plan, administration official said. The website also didn’t go live in on time in the early hours of Friday—leaving some refreshing anxiously. Once up, it went down because of “higher traffic than estimated.”

The original plan was to process about 300 people per day at each of the three designated ports. Government organizations and non-profits who are working with migrants have tried to distribute the right information. But there is still confusion and desperation for people who have been living in squalor conditions for months, or even years. 

More than 60,000 people who sought asylum in the United States were returned to Mexico under the MPP program since it was first implemented in early 2019. Human rights groups and immigration attorneys commended the Biden administration for taking a first step at undoing the havoc caused by Donald Trump at the border under this draconian policy. It’s still unclear what the Biden administration will do, if anything, for the asylum seekers who didn’t get a fair shot at this complicated court process or whose cases were closed ahead of this policy change.  

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate