I found this article
https://nextjs.org/docs/messages/deleting-query-params-in-middlewares

Which makes no sense to me how it is written, "and thus the warning." -- yet there is no warning displayed in their code example, but rather saying .delete is now possible with a party emoji---- sooooo....

I now have the following middleware function:

  export function middleware(request: NextRequest) {
    const nextUrl = request.nextUrl
    const redirect = nextUrl.searchParams.get('redirect_url')
    if (redirect) {
      nextUrl.searchParams.delete('redirect_url')
      const next = NextResponse.rewrite(nextUrl)
      console.log('*** deleted! ***')
      return next
    }

    return NextResponse.next()
  }

I see *** deleted! *** in my server log, but the url still contains the query string param... What am I doing wrong?