13,000+ Asylum Seekers Ordered to Countries They've Never Visited Under Trump Policy

The Trump administration is ordering asylum seekers deported to countries they've never set foot in — and leaving thousands in legal limbo

More than 13,000 immigrants who were living legally in the United States while waiting for rulings on their asylum claims have been ordered deported to so-called "third countries" — nations they have no connection to — according to nonprofit group Mobile Pathways. An Afghan man who fled the Taliban was ordered to Uganda. A Cuban woman working at a Texas Chick-fil-A was arrested after a minor traffic accident and told she'd be sent to Ecuador. Mauritanians, Venezuelans, Bolivians, and Ecuadorians across the country have received similar orders, often to places like Honduras or Uganda.

Stuck in limbo — and losing work permits

Despite the volume of orders, few of these deportations have actually been carried out. But the consequences are immediate and severe: everyone under a third-country order has lost their legal right to work, a benefit most held while their asylum cases moved through the courts.

Some are being held in immigration detention, though the exact number is unclear. All are in a bureaucratic no-man's-land — unable to argue their case in immigration court, unable to work, and uncertain whether they'll be placed on a deportation flight to a country they've never visited.

A policy critics call deliberate intimidation

"This administration's goal is to instill fear into people. That's the primary thing," said Cassandra Charles, a senior staff attorney with the National Immigration Law Center, which has been challenging the administration's mass deportation agenda.

Advocates believe the fear of being sent to an unknown country is designed to pressure migrants to abandon their US immigration cases entirely and voluntarily return to their home countries — even countries they originally fled for their safety.

What the courts have said

A federal judge in Massachusetts ruled in February 2026 that the Trump administration's third-country deportation policy is unlawful and must be set aside. Judge Brian E. Murphy suspended his decision for 15 days to give the government time to appeal. The case has already reached the US Supreme Court. Meanwhile, a Democratic report found the administration spent at least $40 million to carry out roughly 300 such deportations — a steep cost for a policy under active legal challenge.