The change occurred on the afternoon of September 17 in the special courtroom set aside for illegal entry misdemeanor cases, when Magistrate Judge William V. Gallo suddenly announced that the district court judges, who set policy for the Southern District of California, had decided at a lunchtime meeting that “effective immediately, there will be no same-day pleas.”

Just two months after Operation Streamline was contentiously rolled out to the Southern District of California, the court suspended a major aspect of the fast-track prosecution program, which aims to federally prosecute and sentence people who cross the border without authorization in a matter of minutes. Judges are no longer accepting guilty pleas on the same day an individual first appears in court, marking the end of a practice that defense attorneys have characterized as “ coercive ” for the overwhelming pressure it places on a defendant to plead guilty before they have a chance to consider a possible defense.

Earlier that morning, defense attorneys had met with their clients inside a converted garage in the basement of the federal building in downtown San Diego that attorneys have referred to as the “dungeon.” Many of their clients had spent several nights sleeping on the floor of Border Patrol stations and were still wearing the clothes they were arrested in.

According to defense lawyer Jami Ferrara, the head of San Diego’s Criminal Justice Act Panel, the decision came after Jan Adler, the head of the magistrate judges (who have been tasked with presiding over the illegal entry courtroom), proposed to the district court judges that the court no longer accept same-day pleas.

The magistrate judges have seen their court calendars balloon since the start of Operation Streamline in July, with misdemeanor sentencing stretching well into the evening — often extended by the objections of federal defenders, who have questioned the legality of the arrangement.

“We made a concerted effort to fight this process, and that hasn’t happened in any of the other districts where this process was instituted,” Ferrara told The Intercept.

For years, the Southern District of California had been the sole border district to hold off on the implementation of Operation Streamline, which first originated under the George W. Bush administration. But after the massive rise in prosecutions filed for misdemeanor illegal entry following Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s April announcement of the Justice Department’s new “zero tolerance” policy, the district relented and instituted the program. Problems with the expedited prosecution process quickly began to pile up.

Without much time to track down birth certificates or other official documentation, prosecutors repeatedly filed charges against minors, and in at least one instance, a judge sentenced a young Mexican woman under the age of 18. Ordinarily, minors from Mexico caught crossing the border are returned to their country as soon as possible, and the cases of those charged with more serious crimes, like importing drugs, are handled in state courts, which have greater protections for minors.

Conditions of confinement for those being prosecuted under Operation Streamline have also been an issue, as the federal government has sought to relieve overcrowding in the federal jail system by keeping those charged with misdemeanor illegal entry in the custody of Border Patrol, instead of the U.S. Marshals Service. This has resulted in dozens of people sleeping on the crowded floors of Border Patrol stations, which are poorly equipped to house individuals for long periods of time. This extended confinement has also led to allegations of abuse — in July, a Mexican citizen said a Border Patrol agent forced him to clean the agent’s truck and then shut him inside of it with the air conditioning at full blast.

On September 26, initial appearances for nearly two dozen people charged with illegal entry finished within an hour, a dramatic change from weeks before under the full version of Operation Streamline. While defendants will continue to appear for initial hearings en masse in a special courtroom, defense attorneys now have the opportunity to look into the charges against their clients and determine whether taking a plea deal would be wise. Their clients will also have the opportunity to have their bail posted or remain in the custody of the U.S. marshals.