Austin Kocher, a research associate professor with TRAC, said a majority of the more than 41,000 immigrants with closed cases had a determination in their case made without them being present.

He believes this has less to do with an immigrant’s desire to complete their cases and more to do with the barriers the Remain in Mexico program placed in their path. An attorney can make a world of difference in successfully arguing an asylum case, but MPP made it hard for immigrants to find legal representation, Kocher said.

Additionally, asylum-seekers were told to show up at ports of entry before dawn for their MPP hearings in border cities where gangs and cartels preyed on them.

“They were standing on the streets of Juarez and Matamoros at 4:30 a.m., places where people were being kidnapped and extorted,” Kocher told BuzzFeed News. “MPP was about weaponizing geography to make asylum impossible.”

And there’s no indication from the Biden administration that the thousands of closed MPP cases will get a do-over, Kocher said.

“Or really an actual first chance,” Kocher said. “This is 41,000 people who are facing violence and persecution of some kind and now have to figure out what to do.”