2026年5月8日 / 美国东部时间下午12:13 / 哥伦比亚广播公司新闻（CBS News）
作者：威廉·亚塞尔加·贝纳卡尔萨
威廉·亚塞尔加·贝纳卡尔萨的庇护案遵循了全美移民法庭日渐常见的模式：在向法官表明他害怕返回本国后，法官下令将他驱逐至另一个国家。
亚塞尔加称他为躲避厄瓜多尔犯罪团伙的威胁而逃离，当时他面临被遣返至洪都拉斯的处境。截至3月，他已在移民海关总署（ICE）的拘留所待了五个月，期间他感染了病毒、不得不为食物争抢、饮用被氯污染的水。因此他要求被送回祖国厄瓜多尔，而非继续在美国为自己的案件抗辩。
“我认为我们放弃庇护案是因为律师告诉我，我可能还要再被拘留三四个月。我在里面已经生病了，再也撑不下去了，”亚塞尔加在厄瓜多尔接受哥伦比亚广播公司新闻电话采访时用西班牙语说道。
“我唯一想要的就是出去，获得自由，因为被关在那里太可怕了，”他补充道。
美国国土安全部（DHS）的一位发言人告诉哥伦比亚广播公司新闻，贝纳卡尔萨非法入境美国，并于4月16日被遣返回厄瓜多尔。
哥伦比亚广播公司新闻对近期公布的联邦数据进行分析，并采访了律师和移民政策专家后发现，特朗普政府将寻求庇护者驱逐至第三国的前所未有的举措，已导致数千名移民的案件停滞，更促使数千人放弃庇护申请。
“第三国驱逐更多与恐惧有关，而非规模大小，”华盛顿特区无党派智库移民政策研究所的高级政策分析师阿里尔·鲁伊斯·索托说道。
据由非营利组织难民国际和人权第一运营的监督组织“第三国驱逐观察”估计，自特朗普总统再次就职以来，已有约17500人被驱逐至第三国，其中绝大多数被送往墨西哥。这一数字约占边境专员汤姆·霍曼所说的特朗普第二任期至今已执行的总驱逐人数的2%。
面临被驱逐至第三国威胁的人数要多得多。哥伦比亚广播公司新闻对移民法庭数据的分析显示，在一场持续数月的全面行动中，超过75500起庇护案收到了“终止诉讼”动议，即无需进行案情听证即可终止程序。
此类动议此前相对罕见，直到2025年10月，美国移民法院系统的上诉机构移民上诉委员会（BIA）裁定，移民法官应在审议某人是否有资格获得庇护之前，先就第三国驱逐动议做出决定。这些国家已与特朗普政府签署了“庇护合作协议”，允许美国将寻求庇护者重新遣送至这些国家，迫使他们在美国境外寻求庇护。
在此裁决之后，移民律师表示，他们代理的几乎每一位寻求庇护者现在都必须辩称，他们不仅害怕在本国遭受迫害，也害怕在厄瓜多尔、洪都拉斯、危地马拉和乌干达等第三国遭受迫害。
移民海关总署未回应哥伦比亚广播公司新闻就其将寻求庇护者送往第三国的举措或拘留所条件置评的请求。
截至3月31日的移民法庭数据显示，在提交终止诉讼动议的案件中，约16%的寻求庇护者——即约12300人——撤回或放弃了庇护申请，或同意自愿离开美国。
“人们被驱逐到的第三国本身往往也是非常危险的国家，没有运转正常的庇护系统，”国家移民项目的主管律师维多利亚·尼尔森说道。“人们有很多理由感到恐惧，我想他们会选择自己了解的恶魔，而非一无所知的恶魔。”
陷入僵局的庇护案件
移民法庭数据显示，在提交终止诉讼动议后，超过24000人收到了将其驱逐至与美国签署庇护合作协议国家的驱逐令。移民海关总署未披露实际被驱逐的人数，也未回应哥伦比亚广播公司新闻关于这一数字的问询。其中一些人可能会像亚塞尔加那样，无论如何都试图返回本国。
移民律师告诉哥伦比亚广播公司新闻，他们怀疑根据这些协议将如此多的人驱逐至第三国是否可行。例如，洪都拉斯仅同意每月接受10名非本国国民的被驱逐者，但截至3月底，已有超过6300名非洪都拉斯人收到了将其遣返至该国的终止诉讼动议后的驱逐令。据“第三国驱逐观察”称，截至4月底，仅有约60人被驱逐至洪都拉斯。
“我认为我们现在看到的是强迫法官下令将移民驱逐至未同意接收他们的第三国所带来的不可避免的结果，”佐治亚州亚特兰大的移民律师阿德里安娜·赫夫利说道。“现在有数千人持有无法执行的驱逐令。”
据《西雅图时报》报道，3月中旬，移民海关总署的律师收到一封电子邮件，指示他们不要提交新的终止诉讼动议，但已提交动议的案件可以继续推进。国土安全部未回应哥伦比亚广播公司新闻就该备忘录置评的请求。
针对根据第三国协议终止庇护案件做法的联邦诉讼目前正在审理中，该诉讼指控联邦政府破坏正当程序，并辩称其签署协议的国家庇护系统不完善。
约13300起案件——占收到第三国驱逐令案件的一半以上——也陷入了停滞，因为这些移民正在对驱逐令提起上诉，而上诉会暂停驱逐程序。移民上诉委员会作为最终决策机构，截至3月底仅裁决了不到1%的上诉。数据显示，去年该委员会审理案件上诉的平均时间为两年。
在本届政府任期内，公开的具有先例意义的移民上诉委员会裁决绝大多数都支持国土安全部。
从拘留所面临第三国驱逐
维权人士和律师表示，对于那些收到第三国驱逐令且处于拘留中的人——根据移民法庭数据，截至3月底约有1800人——无限期等待上诉裁决可能比被驱逐的威胁更糟糕。数据显示，对于在押人员，移民上诉委员会的审理速度更快，但去年平均仍需约10个月。
亚塞尔加放弃庇护案之前，他被转移至全美各地的五个拘留所，在部分转移过程中被戴上手铐整整一天，他告诉哥伦比亚广播公司新闻。他大部分时间都在亚利桑那州埃洛伊，距离他在纽约的妻子、孩子和律师团队数千英里之遥，他还说，有一个多月的时间，他的家人和律师都不知道他在哪里。一名法官拒绝了他保释出狱的请求。
“除非联邦法院介入，认定他们的拘留不合理或非法并释放他们——否则他们会一直把你关在那里，”犹他州普罗沃的移民律师卡洛斯·特鲁希略说道。“这是一种心理战，试图迫使你放弃。”
在给哥伦比亚广播公司新闻的一份声明中，国土安全部的一位发言人表示，亚塞尔加于2023年8月非法越美墨边境，移民法官于上个月下令将其驱逐回厄瓜多尔。国土安全部的发言人补充说，亚塞尔加因盗窃罪和持有赃物被捕。
“特朗普总统的态度很明确：犯罪的非法外国人不受美国欢迎。如果你来到我们国家并违反我们的法律，我们会找到你、逮捕你并将你驱逐出境，”这位发言人写道。
亚塞尔加表示，他从未被起诉。根据移民海关总署的数据，在他被拘留时，这些指控仍处于待审状态。
被遣返回厄瓜多尔两周后，亚塞尔加告诉哥伦比亚广播公司新闻，他难以入睡，仍在与在拘留所感染的病毒作斗争，这让他病得无法找到工作。
“我之前挣的所有钱，我拥有的一切，我都留给了他们，让他们在我被拘留期间能够维持生计，”他用西班牙语说道，指的是他在纽约的家人。“我想要的就是忘记这一切，重新开始，因为仅仅为了尽力照顾家人就被关押，却没有犯下任何罪行，这太可怕了。”
关于数据
哥伦比亚广播公司新闻分析了2025年1月1日至2026年3月31日期间移民审查执行办公室（EOIR）的移民法庭诉讼数据，涉及庇护案件。虽然数据未明确说明终止诉讼动议是基于庇护合作协议，还是针对另一项移民上诉委员会的裁决，但对几位移民律师的采访以及性别与难民研究中心的数据表明，过去几个月提交的绝大多数终止诉讼动议都是为了推动此类第三国驱逐。此外，虽然数据包含自愿遣返决定的日期，但未包含庇护申请被撤回的日期字段。对移民律师的采访和对移民审查执行办公室此前发布数据的分析表明，大多数撤回申请都是在提交终止诉讼动议之后发生的。
卡米洛·蒙托亚-加尔韦斯为本报道撰稿。
Thousands of asylum-seekers abandon their cases as ICE seeks to deport them to nations they aren’t from
May 8, 2026 / 12:13 PM EDT / CBS News
By
Willian Yacelga Benalcazar’s asylum case followed what had become a similar pattern in immigration courts across the country: After telling a judge he feared returning to his home country, the judge ordered his deportation to another one.
Yacelga, who said he fled threats from criminal gangs in Ecuador, was facing removal to Honduras. By March, he had spent five months in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention, where he said he caught a virus, had to fight for food and drank water contaminated with chlorine. So he asked to be sent back to his native Ecuador rather than continue to fight his case in the U.S.
“I believe we abandoned the asylum case because the lawyer told me I could be in detention for three, four additional months. I was already sick in there. I couldn’t take it anymore,” Yacelga told CBS News from Ecuador, speaking in Spanish during a phone interview.
“All I wanted was to get out, to be free, because it’s horrible being locked up in there,” he added.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told CBS News Benalcazar entered the U.S. illegally and was deported to Ecuador on April 16.
The Trump administration’s unprecedented efforts to deport asylum-seekers to third countries have stalled thousands of immigrants’ cases and scared thousands more into giving up their asylum claims, according to a CBS News analysis of recently released federal data and interviews with attorneys and immigration policy experts.
Third-country deportations “have more to do with fear than scale,” said Ariel Ruiz Soto, a senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank based in Washington, D.C .
About 17,500 people have been deported to third countries since President Trump returned to office, according to an estimate from Third Country Deportation Watch, a monitoring group operated by the nonprofits Refugees International and Human Rights First. The vast majority were sent to Mexico. That number is about 2% of the total deportations border czar Tom Homan told CBS News have been carried out during Mr. Trump’s second term so far.
Far more have faced the threat of being deported to a third country. In a sweeping, monthslong campaign, more than 75,500 asylum cases received a motion to “pretermit,” or terminate proceedings without a hearing on the merits, according to a CBS News analysis of immigration court data.
These motions were relatively rare until October 2025, when the Board of Immigration Appeals, the appellate body in the U.S. immigration court system, ruled that immigration judges should decide on motions for third-country removal before considering whether someone qualifies for asylum. These countries have signed “asylum cooperative agreements” with the Trump administration that allow the U.S. to re-route asylum-seekers there, forcing them to seek refuge outside of American soil.
After that decision, immigration attorneys said nearly every asylum-seeker they represented now had to argue they feared persecution not only in their home country, but in third-party nations like Ecuador, Honduras, Guatemala and Uganda.
ICE did not respond to CBS News’ request for comment about its efforts to send asylum-seekers to third countries or about detention facility conditions.
In cases where a motion to pretermit was filed, about 16% of asylum-seekers — or roughly 12,300 people — withdrew or abandoned their asylum claims or agreed to voluntarily depart the U.S., immigration court data through March 31 shows.
“The third countries people are being removed to are often very dangerous countries themselves that don’t have a functioning asylum system,” said Victoria Neilson, supervising attorney at the National Immigration Project. “There’s a lot of reasons for people to be afraid and I guess choose the devil you know over the one you know nothing about.”
Asylum cases in limbo
More than 24,000 people received removal orders to third countries the U.S. has asylum cooperative agreements with after a motion to pretermit their case was filed, the immigration court data shows. ICE has not disclosed how many have been actually removed, and did not respond to CBS News inquiries about the figure. Some, as Yacelga did, may seek to return to their home countries anyway.
Immigration attorneys told CBS News they are doubtful that it will be feasible to deport so many people to third countries under the agreements. Honduras, for example, has only agreed to accept 10 non-Honduran deportees per month, but more than 6,300 non-Hondurans had a deportation order to that country by the end of March after receiving a motion to pretermit their case. About 60 had been removed to Honduras as of late April, according to Third Country Deportation Watch.
“I believe what we’re seeing now is the inevitable result of forcing judges to order immigrants deported to third countries that have not agreed to accept them,” said Adriana Heffley, an immigration attorney in Atlanta, Georgia. “There are thousands of people now with deportation orders that cannot be carried out.”
In mid-March, ICE attorneys received an email directing them not to file new motions to pretermit cases, The Seattle Times reported, but that cases where motions had already been filed could continue. DHS did not respond to CBS News’ request for comment on the memo.
A federal lawsuit against the practice of pretermitting asylum cases under the third-country agreements is currently pending, accusing the federal government of subverting due process and arguing the countries it has signed agreements with have inadequate asylum systems.
About 13,300 cases — more than half of those with third-country removal orders — are also stalled while those immigrants appeal their removal, immigration court data shows, as an appeal puts a pause on deportation. The BIA, which makes the final decision, decided less than 1% of the appeals by the end of March. Last year, the board took an average of two years to rule on a case decision appeal, the data shows.
Under the current administration, BIA decisions that set a precedent, which are public, have been overwhelmingly in favor of DHS.
Facing third-country removal from detention
For those with third-country removal orders in detention — about 1,800 people as of the end of March, according to immigration court data — waiting indefinitely for an appeal ruling can be worse than the threat of deportation, advocates and lawyers say. The BIA’s turnaround is faster for those in detention, but still averaged about 10 months last year, the data shows.
Before Yacelga gave up his asylum case, he was transferred between five detention facilities spread across the country and handcuffed for an entire day during some of the transfers, he told CBS News. He spent most of his time in Eloy, Arizona, thousands of miles from his wife, children and legal team in New York, and he said that for over a month, his family and attorney didn’t know where he was. A judge denied his request to bond out of detention.
“Unless a federal court steps in and says that their detention is unreasonable or illegal and they release them — otherwise, they will keep you there,” said Carlos Trujillo, an immigration attorney in Provo, Utah. “It’s the psychological warfare of trying to push you to just give up.”
In a statement to CBS News, a DHS spokesperson said Yacelga crossed the U.S.-Mexico border illegally in August 2023 and that he was ordered deported to Ecuador last month by immigration judge. The DHS spokesperson added that Yacelga was arrested for larceny and criminal possession of stolen property.
“President Trump’s message has been clear: criminal illegal aliens are not welcome in the U.S. If you come to our country and break our laws, we will find you, arrest you, and deport you,” the spokesperson wrote.
Yacelga said he was never prosecuted. The charges were pending when he was detained, data from ICE indicates.
About two weeks after his deportation to Ecuador, Yacelga told CBS News he struggles to sleep and still battles symptoms from the virus he caught in detention, which has left him too sick to find a job.
“Everything, all the money I had earned, everything I had, I left it with them so they could survive during the time I was detained,” he said in Spanish, referring to his family in New York. “What I want is to forget all that and start over because it was horrible being imprisoned without having committed any crime, just for wanting to, well, try to take care of your family.”
About the data
_CBS News analyzed_data from the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) on immigration court proceedings for those with asylum cases from Jan. 1, 2025, through March 31, 2026. While the data does not specify whether motions to pretermit are made on the grounds of asylum cooperative agreements or in response to a_different BIA ruling_, interviews with several immigration attorneys and_data from the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies indicate that the vast majority of pretermission motions filed over the last several months have been made in pursuit of such third-country removals. Further, while the data includes the date of a voluntary departure decision, it does not include a date field for when an asylum application was withdrawn. Interviews with immigration attorneys and an analysis of previous data releases from EOIR suggest most withdrawals took place after a pretermission motion was filed._
Camilo Montoya-Galvez contributed to this report.
