Twenty-five asylum-seekers were allowed into the United States on Friday as U.S President Joe Biden begins to set aside former President Donald Trump‘s restrictive immigration policies, reports Voice of America. 

During his campaign, Mr. Biden pledged to do away with Mr. Trump’s policy, known as the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), which denied entry to over 65,000 mostly Central American asylum-seekers, forcing them back across the border into Mexico pending court hearings. 

The new protocols mean they will be allowed into the U.S. as they wait for their cases to be heard in immigration courts. Requirements for entry into the U.S. to process the asylum seekers forced to wait in Mexico are to first register online and test negative for coronavirus. 

Officials have stated that a limited number of migrants would be processed initially, and those who have waited the longest would be prioritised. Estimates are that 25,000 people out of over 65,000 enrolled in MPP still have active immigration court cases.

On Friday, 25 MPP asylum-seekers were allowed through a port of entry in San Ysidro, California, where they will now quarantine in a local hotel. 

The additional ports will be opened to aid the migration effort in the coming week. According to a U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokeswoman, these will be located in Texas and Matamoros. 

There was a delay in launching a website on Friday that allows migrants with active cases to register remotely to be processed in the U.S.-Mexico border, but the site went live later in the day. 

From January 20, Mr. Biden’s first day in office, the president started rescinding Trump’s immigration policies. First, a travel ban on 13 mostly Muslim-majority and African countries was lifted, and construction of the U.S.-Mexico border wall was halted.