UPSTATE NEW YORK — Top Immigration and Customs Enforcement legal officials emailed Department of Homeland Security field attorneys in mid-March instructing them to stop filing new motions for third-country deportations tied to asylum cases, according to an internal ICE email. The email, which has not been publicly released, did not provide a reason for the directive. Third-country deportation cases filed before the halt continue to proceed.

More than 13,000 immigrants living legally in the United States and waiting for asylum claim rulings have received orders to be deported to countries where most have no ties, according to Mobile Pathways, a technology nonprofit that tracks immigration data. All immigrants who received third-country deportation orders have lost permission to work legally in the United States. Fewer than 100 migrants have been deported to third countries under asylum removal orders, according to Third Country Deportation Watch.

Last summer, ICE attorneys were instructed to file motions known as "pretermissions" that end migrants' asylum claims and allow them to be deported. In October, the Justice Department's Board of Immigration Appeals issued a ruling that asylum-seekers may be removed to any third country where the U.S. State Department determines they will not face persecution or torture. The three-judge panel included two judges appointed by Attorney General Pam Bondi and one holdover from the first Trump administration. The pace of deportation orders increased after the ruling, and the government expanded the practice of ending asylum claims using third-country removal orders.

More than half of the third-country deportation orders were for Honduras, Ecuador, or Uganda, with the remainder covering nearly three dozen other countries, according to Mobile Pathways data. Thousands of people have been ordered deported to Honduras despite a diplomatic agreement limiting Honduras to receiving 10 deportees per month for 24 months, the data indicated.

"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, who tracks immigration issues at the American Civil Liberties Union.

"This administration's goal is to instill fear into people. That's the primary thing," said Cassandra Charles, senior staff attorney with the National Immigration Law Center.

"DHS is using every lawful tool available to address the backlog and abuse of the asylum system," said a DHS spokesperson. There are roughly 2 million backlogged asylum cases in the U.S. immigration system. Deportations under third-country removal orders have been restricted by legal challenges, the scope of the Asylum Cooperative Agreements, and a limited number of airplanes.