Ecuadorian Asylum Seeker Abandons U.S. Case, Deported Home After Third-Country Threat

Willian Yacelga Benalcazar's asylum case followed a pattern seen in immigration courts nationwide. After telling a judge he feared returning to Ecuador, the judge ordered his deportation to Honduras.

Yacelga said he fled threats from criminal gangs in Ecuador. By March, he had spent five months in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention. There, he caught a virus, fought for food and drank chlorine-contaminated water. He asked to return to Ecuador rather than continue his U.S. case.

"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 in a phone interview conducted in Spanish.

"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 that Benalcazar entered the U.S. illegally and was deported to Ecuador on April 16.

The Trump administration's push to deport asylum-seekers to third countries has stalled thousands of cases and prompted thousands more to drop their claims, a CBS News analysis of federal data and interviews with attorneys and experts shows.

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 in Washington, D.C.

About 17,500 people have been deported to third countries since President Trump returned to office, according to Third Country Deportation Watch, run by Refugees International and Human Rights First. Most went to Mexico. That figure represents about 2 percent of total deportations border czar Tom Homan cited to CBS News from Trump's second term so far.

More than 75,500 asylum cases received motions to "pretermit," or end proceedings without a merits hearing, in a campaign spanning months, immigration court data shows.

Such motions were rare until October 2025. Then the Board of Immigration Appeals ruled that judges must address third-country removal before asylum eligibility. The U.S. has asylum cooperative agreements with countries including Ecuador, Honduras, Guatemala and Uganda to send seekers there.

Immigration attorneys said nearly every client now must prove fear of persecution in both home and third countries.

ICE did not respond to CBS News requests about third-country efforts or detention conditions.

In pretermit cases, about 16 percent of asylum-seekers, or roughly 12,300 people, withdrew claims, abandoned them or agreed to voluntary departure through March 31, court data 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."

More than 24,000 people got third-country removal orders after pretermit motions, court data shows. ICE has not said how many were removed.

Attorneys doubt mass deportations to third countries under the agreements are feasible. Honduras agreed to take 10 non-Hondurans monthly, but over 6,300 had orders there by late March. About 60 had been sent as of late April, per 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 Atlanta immigration attorney Adriana Heffley. "There are thousands of people now with deportation orders that cannot be carried out."

In mid-March, ICE attorneys got an email barring new pretermit motions, though existing ones could proceed, The Seattle Times reported. DHS did not comment.

A federal lawsuit challenges pretermitting asylum cases under third-country deals, claiming due process violations and inadequate asylum systems abroad.

About 13,300 cases, over half with third-country orders, are stalled on appeal, which pauses deportation. The BIA decided less than 1 percent by March's end. Last year, it averaged two years per appeal.

BIA precedent-setting decisions under the administration have favored DHS.

About 1,800 people with third-country orders remained in detention at March's end. Advocates say waiting for BIA rulings, averaging 10 months last year for detainees, can exceed deportation fears.

Yacelga was shifted among five facilities, including Eloy, Arizona, far from his New York family and lawyers. His family and attorney lost track of him for over a month. Transfers involved full-day handcuffs. A judge denied bond.

"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 Provo, Utah, attorney Carlos Trujillo. "It's the psychological warfare of trying to push you to just give up."

DHS said Yacelga crossed the U.S.-Mexico border illegally in August 2023. An immigration judge ordered him deported to Ecuador last month. He faced larceny and criminal possession of stolen property charges.

"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. Charges were pending at detention, ICE data shows.

Two weeks after deportation, Yacelga reported sleep troubles and virus symptoms barring work.

"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 of his New York family. "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."