Skip to main content Currently Reading Biden ends policy forcing asylum-seekers to 'remain in Mexico' - but for 41,247 migrants, it's too late Austin Kocher, Syracuse University FacebookTwitterEmail Austin Kocher, Syracuse University (THE CONVERSATION) The last residents of Mexico’s Matamoros refugee camp crossed the border into the United States on March 5 to request asylum. The migrants – many of them Central Americans fleeing endemic violence, poverty and corruption – will be allowed to stay in the U.S. as their cases move through the immigration court system. The exodus from the Matamoros camp, which once sheltered more than 2,500 asylum-seekers, marks the end of a Trump-era policy called the Migrant Protection Protocols. Commonly known as “Remain in Mexico,” the January 2019 policy forced 71,000 migrants who were detained along the U.S.-Mexico border back into Mexico to file for asylum and wait for many months while their claims were processed.