ACROSS THE UNITED STATES — The Justice Department's Board of Immigration Appeals ruled in October that migrants seeking asylum in the United States could be removed to any third country where the State Department determines they would not face persecution or torture. More than 13,000 immigrants living legally in the U.S. and waiting for rulings on their asylum claims have since been ordered deported to third countries where most had no ties, according to Mobile Pathways.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement attorneys were first instructed last summer to file motions known as pretermissions that end migrants' asylum claims and allow them to be deported. After the Board of Immigration Appeals ruling, the government increased the use of pretermissions to end asylum claims through third-country removals. Over half of the more than 13,000 third-country deportation orders were for Honduras, Ecuador or Uganda, with the remaining orders spanning nearly three dozen other countries.

"They're not saying the person doesn't have a claim. They're just saying, 'We're kicking this case completely out of court and we're going to send that person to another country,'" said Sarah Mehta, immigration policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union.

Despite the volume of orders, fewer than 100 of the immigrants ordered to third countries are believed to have been deported, according to Third Country Deportation Watch. All immigrants ordered under the policy have lost permission to work legally in the U.S. Many are unable to present their asylum claims in court. Some are in detention, though the number in detention is unclear.

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said, "Asylum Cooperative Agreements are 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 spokesperson also said, "DHS is using every lawful tool available to address the backlog and abuse of the asylum system." There are roughly 2 million backlogged asylum cases in the U.S. immigration system.

A diplomatic agreement with Honduras allows the country to accept 10 third-country deportees per month for 24 months. According to Mobile Pathways, thousands of people have been ordered deported to Honduras. Dozens of those ordered to Honduras did not speak Spanish as their primary language but primarily spoke English, Uzbek or French. Hundreds of asylum-seeking migrants have been ordered deported to Uganda.

Okello Oryem, minister of state for foreign affairs of Uganda, said no migrants ordered to Uganda have arrived. "You can't be doing one, two people at a time," Oryem said. "Planeloads – that is the most effective way."

In mid-March, ICE legal officials instructed DHS field attorneys to halt filing new pretermissions for third-country deportations in asylum cases, according to an internal DHS email. The email did not provide a reason and has not been publicly released.