Approximately 25,000 migrants are currently waiting at the border, and the administration officials said they would begin allowing 600 a day to enter the country, NBC News reported.
Asylum-seekers who have been waiting the longest or are considered vulnerable will be eligible to enter the United States starting Feb. 19.
They will be tested for COVID-19 by an international agency on the Mexican side of the border before being transferred to one of three ports of entry for processing.
The immigrants will not be detained but will be kept on “alternatives to detention,” although the officials did not specify what those alternatives would be, the report said.
Officials said this is the first step toward “humane processing at the border,” a jab at President Donald Trump’s policies.