An Afghan refugee who escaped Taliban rule while living in upstate New York received a deportation notice to Uganda. A Cuban woman employed at a Texas Chick-fil-A was detained following a minor car crash and informed she would be sent to Ecuador.
Additional cases include a Mauritanian resident of Michigan facing removal to Uganda, a Venezuelan mother in Ohio designated for Ecuador, and numerous Bolivians and Ecuadorians nationwide ordered to Honduras.
These individuals represent more than 13,000 migrants who were residing legally in America while awaiting asylum decisions when they received unexpected third-country removal orders to nations where most have zero connections, according to Mobile Pathways, a nonprofit advocating for immigration transparency.
However, actual deportations remain minimal despite the administration’s push for increased removals. Due to unexplained policy modifications, many find themselves trapped in immigration uncertainty, prevented from presenting their asylum arguments in court while facing potential deportation flights to unfamiliar countries.
While some remain in detention facilities, the exact number is unknown. All have forfeited their legal employment authorization, which most possessed during their asylum proceedings, intensifying anxiety throughout immigrant communities.
This outcome may be intentional.
“This administration’s goal is to instill fear into people. That’s the primary thing,” stated Cassandra Charles, a senior staff attorney with the National Immigration Law Center, which opposes the Trump administration’s mass deportation policies. Advocates believe the threat of removal to unknown nations might pressure migrants to withdraw their immigration cases and voluntarily return home.
Recent developments suggest potential changes.
During mid-March, senior Immigration and Customs Enforcement legal officials instructed field attorneys within the Department of Homeland Security via email to cease filing new third-country deportation motions related to asylum cases. The Associated Press obtained this email, which provided no explanation. DHS has not publicly released this directive and failed to respond to inquiries about whether this suspension is permanent.
However, existing deportation proceedings continue.
A Guatemalan woman who claims she was imprisoned and repeatedly sexually assaulted by powerful gang members arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border in 2024 with her 4-year-old daughter, requesting asylum. She subsequently learned she was pregnant with another child conceived during rape.
Last December, she attended a San Francisco immigration hearing where an ICE attorney requested her deportation.
The ICE attorney did not request her return to Guatemala. Instead, the attorney proposed sending the Indigenous Guatemalan highlands woman to Ecuador, Honduras, or Uganda.
She had never previously heard of Ecuador or Uganda.
“When I arrived in this country, I was filled with hope again and I thanked God for being alive,” the woman shared following the hearing, tears welling in her eyes. “When I think about having to go to those other countries, I panic because I hear they are violent and dangerous.” She requested anonymity, fearing retaliation from U.S. immigration officials or the Guatemalan gang network.
ICE attorneys, serving as immigration court prosecutors, received initial instructions last summer to file “pretermission” motions that terminate migrants’ asylum claims and enable deportation.
“They’re not saying the person doesn’t have a claim,” explained Sarah Mehta, who monitors immigration issues for the American Civil Liberties Union. “They’re just saying, ‘We’re kicking this case completely out of court and we’re going to send that person to another country.’”
Deportation orders accelerated in October following a Justice Department Board of Immigration Appeals decision that establishes legal precedent within the complex immigration court system.
The ruling from three judges — two appointed by Attorney General Pam Bondi and one remaining from the first Trump administration — authorized removing asylum-seeking migrants to any third country where the U.S. State Department determines they won’t face persecution or torture.
Following this decision, the government dramatically expanded the practice of terminating asylum claims.
More than 13,000 migrants have received deportation orders to designated “safe third countries” after their asylum cases were dismissed, based on San Francisco-based Mobile Pathways data. Over half the orders designated Honduras, Ecuador, or Uganda, with remaining cases distributed among nearly three dozen other nations.
Deported migrants can theoretically pursue asylum and remain in those third countries, even though some have barely functional asylum systems.
Immigration officials have disclosed minimal information about these third-country agreements, called Asylum Cooperative Agreements, or the deportees, making it unclear exactly how many have been removed to third countries through asylum removals.
According to Third Country Deportation Watch, a monitoring system operated by Refugees International and Human Rights First, fewer than 100 are believed to have been deported.
DHS described the agreements as “lawful bilateral arrangements that allow illegal aliens seeking asylum in the United States to pursue protection in a partner country that has agreed to fairly adjudicate their claims” in a statement.
“DHS is using every lawful tool available to address the backlog and abuse of the asylum system,” the spokesperson’s statement continued. Approximately 2 million asylum cases remain backlogged in the immigration system.
Deportations have proven far more complex than the government anticipated, limited by various legal challenges, international agreement scope, and restricted aircraft availability.
Mobile Pathways data reveals thousands ordered deported to Honduras despite a diplomatic agreement permitting only 10 such deportees monthly for 24 months. Dozens recently ordered to Honduras do not speak Spanish primarily, but are native English, Uzbek, and French speakers, among other languages.
While hundreds of asylum-seeking migrants have been ordered to Uganda, a senior Ugandan official confirmed none have arrived. U.S. authorities may be “doing a cost analysis” and avoiding flights with few passengers, Okello Oryem, Uganda’s minister of state for foreign affairs, told The Associated Press.
“You can’t be doing one, two people” at a time, Oryem explained. “Planeloads — that is the most effective way.”
Many immigration attorneys suspect the March email halting new asylum pretermissions could signal a shift toward other third-country deportation forms.
“Right now they haven’t been able to remove that many people,” said the ACLU’s Mehta. “I do think that will change.”
“They’re in a hiring spree right now. They will have more planes. If they get more agreements, they’ll be able to send more people to more countries.”
