The Biden administration on Wednesday rescinded a policy more widely used by the previous administration that limited the number of asylum-seekers who could ask for protections at a port of entry daily. While “metering” had at times been practiced under the Obama administration, the previous administration made it official policy. The memo follows a court ruling last month finding the practice unconstitutional.

“This memo formally rescinds the Trump administration’s ‘metering’ policy, which was used to turn back asylum seekers trying to enter ports of entry (POE),” Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said in a statement report by CNN. “The new guidance lays out a vision for the lawful, orderly processing of individuals applying for asylum at POEs. Among other improvements, CBP is directed to accelerate ongoing efforts to digitize processing at POEs and more effectively use data to increase throughput.”

“Migrants seeking asylum can present at ports of entry to make their claim, but under the Trump administration, DHS put in place policies limiting the processing of undocumented immigrants, including asylum seekers, at ports,” CNN reported. “The practice, known as ‘metering,’ essentially created a waitlist to allow people to enter only if the department had the capacity to process and detain them at one of its facilities.”

But vulnerable people and their advocates raised early alarms about border officials turning away asylum-seekers even when they did have capacity to process asylum-seekers. Legal action, whistleblowers, and investigations would confirm their claims. 

“In a deposition, the whistleblower is asked, ‘So you were instructed to lie to people when turning them back. Is that right?’ The response: ‘We were instructed, yes,’” KPBS reported last year. Then last month, a lawsuit launched by journalist Bob Moore and his outlet El Paso Matters continued to reveal that border officers “routinely turned back” asylum-seekers even as enough space to process hundreds sat empty. “We knew, we knew, we knew [that the capacity explanation was untrue], and there was nothing that we could do about it,” Annunciation House founder Ruben Garcia told El Paso Matters.

A federal judge in San Diego this past September ruled against the practice, following a lawsuit launched by advocacy group Al Otro Lado and 13 asylum-seekers. “The court ruled that the United States is required by law to inspect and process asylum seekers when they present themselves at ports of entry, and condemned the practice of denying access to the asylum process through metering and similar practices,” the Southern Poverty Law Center said. The organization was among the groups representing Al Otro Lado and asylum-seekers.

It’s welcome news that this metering policy is gone, but because the Biden administration has continued to keep in place Stephen Miller’s anti-asylum Title 42 policy, “it is unclear how this will play out at the border,” noted Reuters immigration reporter Mica Rosenberg. Title 42 is a scientifically unsound, politically motivated policy that has used the pandemic as an excuse to quickly deport asylum-seekers. Experts further expressed concern about wording in the memo rescinding the metering policy:

Unpublished numbers obtained by CBS News last month painted one of the starkest images yet of the cruelty and depravity of the Title 42 policy, showing that of the hundreds of thousands of asylum-seekers subject to the policy since its implementation from March 2020 through September 2021, “only 3,217 migrants processed under the public health law have been referred for interviews with U.S. asylum officers.” Asylum Officers’ Union President Michael Knowles told CBS News the data was “very disturbing and alarming. Migrants are being prevented from exercising a basic human right, which is to apply for asylum.”

Public health experts have also continued to call on the Biden administration to end the use of Title 42, calling it “a pseudoscientific and discriminatory policy.” 

“When public health policy is subverted to serve political agendas, or to exclude, control, or discriminate against certain groups, we are all at risk,” they wrote. “War, persecution and torture do not pause for pandemics, and the right to seek asylum is enshrined in both domestic and international law.” They write that “we have an arsenal of proven public health tools, including testing, vaccines and other common sense public health measures that would allow the United States to process asylum-seekers effectively. It is time to definitively end Title 42.”