Washington, D.C. — A new report released today by Human Rights First, Slammed Doors: Use of Asylum Cooperative Agreements to Unlawfully Reject Asylum Cases, reveals that the Trump administration has used a network of opaque "Asylum Cooperative Agreements" (ACAs) to summarily dismiss more than 30,600 asylum cases since August 2025 — denying people who fled persecution and torture any chance to have their claims heard on the merits of their case.
The report finds that immigration judges have dismissed asylum applications decisions known as "pretermissions," at the request of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) attorneys, often days before, or even during, final merits hearings. Once their asylum case is pretermitted, individuals are ordered removed to third countries, regardless of whether they have any connection to those countries or would face danger there.
The report documents the cascading harms that follow pretermission, including loss of work authorization and employment, electronic ankle monitoring, housing instability, and severe psychological distress.
"The Trump administration continues to find new, cruel ways to punish people seeking asylum," said Robyn Barnard, Vice President of Refugee and Immigrant Rights. "People who have waited weeks, months, sometimes years for their day in court are instead being plunged into limbo; forced into a precarious situation with the threat of a removal order to a third country hanging over their heads. This report centers the experiences of Human Rights First clients, individuals and families in our communities who did everything the U.S. government asked of them, and instead of fair process and the opportunity to be heard and protected, the United States is ordering them back to harm."
Key Findings
- Immigration judges granted ACA-based pretermissions in 30,679 cases between August 2025 and June 2026, according to Human Rights First analysis of Mobile Pathways data.
- Many people ordered removed under the ACAs—including LGBTQI+ asylum seekers—are being sent to countries where they face well-documented risks of prolonged and arbitrary detention, violence, criminalization, or death.
- The report documents individual cases in which people were denied the opportunity to testify about the dangers they would face if removed to a third country, given only days to prepare a defense against removal to unfamiliar countries, or coerced into abandoning their claims altogether after prolonged detention in the United States.
Stories featured in the report include:
- Emmanuel, an Anglophone Cameroonian asylum seeker previously deported and tortured under the first Trump administration, was brought back to the United States in 2024 to seek asylum only to have his case pretermitted days before his final hearing and an order issued sending him to Uganda.
- Hassan, a gay man who survived years of violence and torture due to his sexual orientation, was ordered removed to Uganda, a country he had never been to, where same-sex intimacy is criminalized, without being allowed to testify about the persecution he would face.
- Ingrid, an Indigenous woman from Mexico, was cut off while testifying about the harm she feared and ultimately ordered removed to Ecuador, a country she has never lived in.
- Janeth and her sons, fleeing gender-based violence and anti-LGBTQI+ persecution in Ecuador, had their case thrown out days before their final hearing and were ordered removed to Honduras, a country never before mentioned in their proceedings.
- Yonas, an Ethiopian torture survivor, endured additional months of detention and sexual assault while in ICE custody before his case was pretermitted and he was ordered removed to Uganda — despite evidence he could be sent onward to Ethiopia, the very place he fled.
- Samantha, a young lesbian woman from Honduras, ultimately withdrew her asylum claim and accepted removal to the country she had fled after prolonged detention and repeated attempts to pretermit her case took a toll on her mental health.
- Josue, who fled persecution in Mexico tied to his Indigenous identity, was placed on an electronic ankle monitor after a judge refused to consider his asylum claim and ordered removal under the ACA. The surveillance cost him his job and prevented him from finding new work for weeks, leaving his family of six unable to meet basic needs and causing severe financial hardship, anxiety, and insomnia.
“The Trump administration must immediately end the use of all pretermissions, vacate existing pretermission orders, and restore fair hearings for asylum seekers,” continued Barnard. “Congress must take action to conduct oversight of the ACAs and pretermission practices, ensure public release of agreement texts and implementation guidance, block funding for agreements that don't meet legal requirements, and fund legal services so asylum seekers have meaningful access to counsel. Every person seeking safety deserves their chance to have their cases heard fully.”
Read the report here.
