Trump administration seeks to cancel thousands of asylum cases, saying applicants can be deported to third countries
The Trump administration has mounted a nationwide campaign to void the asylum claims of thousands of immigrants with active cases in immigration court by arguing that they can be deported to countries that are not their own, according to internal government data obtained by CBS News.
The effort appears to have intensified in recent weeks, targeting asylum-seekers with pending cases in immigration courts in Atlanta, New York, Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Texas and elsewhere across the U.S., multiple immigration lawyers and certified legal representatives told CBS News.
Immigration courts are not part of the judicial branch. Instead, they are administrative entities run by the Justice Department, which employs and oversees the judges that adjudicate the cases of people facing deportation. Lawyers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement represent the government in the proceedings.
The administration's new tactic involves ICE attorneys asking the immigration judges to toss out asylum claims without hearing them on the merits. In these requests, known as "pretermit" motions, ICE argues that asylum-seekers fearing persecution in their home countries can instead be deported to one of several nations the Trump administration has persuaded to accept deportees who are not their citizens.
As part of the effort, ICE attorneys have asked immigration judges to order asylum-seekers deported to third countries like Guatemala, Honduras, Ecuador and Uganda, according to court documents reviewed by CBS News and interviews with immigration lawyers. If granted, those petitions nullify asylum-seekers' claims and clear the way for them to be deported to third countries, absent any appeals.
Previously undisclosed internal government data obtained by CBS News indicates that, as of early December, ICE attorneys had filed more than 8,000 motions in immigration court to toss out asylum claims by citing deportation agreements with third countries.
The campaign is the latest move by President Trump to sharply curtail access to the American asylum system, which his administration has argued is being systematically abused by migrants who came to the U.S. for economic reasons, especially those who entered illegally along the southern border under the Biden administration.
In a statement to CBS News, the Department of Homeland Security said the Trump administration is "working to get illegal aliens out of our country as quickly as possible while ensuring they receive all available legal process, including a hearing before an immigration judge."
"DHS is using every lawful tool available to address the backlog and abuse of the asylum system," the department added, citing "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."
The Trump administration's strategy rests on a section of immigration law that disqualifies migrants from asylum if the applicant is eligible to request legal protection in another nation that has agreed to a "safe third country" arrangement with the U.S.
In late October, the Board of Immigration Appeals, which reviews decisions by immigration courts, issued a ruling that lawyers believe will turbocharge efforts by the government to use "safe third country" agreements to cancel asylum cases. That order directed immigration judges to decide the motions by ICE to send immigrants to third-party countries before reviewing their asylum applications. It also placed the burden on asylum-seekers to prove they should not be sent to a third country because of fears of being persecuted there.
"You just have to give up"
While the Trump administration has argued its latest effort is meant to curb asylum fraud, multiple immigration lawyers told CBS News the campaign has affected clients with strong asylum claims who fled persecution in countries like Iran, Nicaragua and Russia.
The attorneys argued the government's campaign is designed to eliminate the path to asylum in the U.S. Some said it is meant to coerce asylum-seekers into withdrawing their claims, by scaring them with the prospect of being deported to a country that is not their own.
"They see the asylum system as a whole as a problem, because it impedes them from deporting people in a quick manner," said Paúl Pirela, an immigration lawyer in Houston.
"If you want to apply for asylum, we're forcing you to apply in a country that you've never been to," Pirela continued. "You just have to give up and go back to your country or go somewhere else," he added later.
Pirela said one of his clients, a Nicaraguan asylum-seeker and political dissident, was ordered deported to Honduras after the government filed a pretermit motion in his case. ICE, he added, is also trying to get another client, an asylum applicant from Guatemala, ordered deported to Honduras.
Atlanta immigration attorney Adriana Heffley got notice that DHS had motioned to pretermit her client's case and deport him to Uganda four days before a hearing, she told CBS News. Her client is from Iran, and was apprehended at the border when he entered the U.S. illegally last December, she said. He has been detained ever since.
Heffley and her client had prepared a case arguing that he would face persecution and danger in Iran as someone who had previously been in same-sex relationships. But they had to switch gears and quickly prove he would also suffer in Uganda. The judge agreed and denied the DHS motion to preempt the case.
"Immigrants who are coming up on a hearing that will determine the course of the rest of their lives and their fate and their safety are being hit with this left-field motion just a day or two before that final hearing," Heffley said.
New York immigration attorney David Treyster is not confident his case will see the same outcome. DHS moved to deport his client, a Russian national, and her 4-year-old child, to Uganda, he told CBS News. The judge initially planned to give Treyster 30 minutes to confer with her before hearing opposing arguments and ruling on the motion. After pleading with the judge, Treyster was able to schedule the hearing for Tuesday.
The judge "seemed to imply that her hands are being tied," he said, given the Board of Immigration Appeals' ruling that the third-country deportations must be considered first. "We haven't even had our hearing, [but] the judge kept saying, 'you're going to have to appeal this.'"
"The person timely and properly applied for asylum and is in line waiting their turn, doing everything that the administration wants people to do, reporting to their court hearings, filing all their papers on time, and here we are just taking that due process away from them," Treyster added.
Some immigration attorneys are challenging the tactic in court, including the 2019 regulation that ICE attorneys have been citing in their motions arguing that asylum-seekers can be deported to third countries.
"I think that this is in line with this administration's attempt to completely eviscerate the availability of asylum and other forms of protection in this country," said Blaine Bookey, legal director for San Francisco's Center for Gender and Refugee Studies, one of the groups litigating the case. "This is, in their view, an easy way to cut off a case at the knees."