A 6-year-old boy pressed close to his mother’s hip as they sat together on a bench in Denver immigration Judge Brea Burgie’s courtroom Tuesday morning. The boy’s green sneakers kicked the air, his legs too short to touch the ground. His dark, gelled curls sat immaculate on his head, aside from a single indentation where his mother’s chin found respite. The boy’s mother was scheduled to present evidence in her asylum trial in Denver Immigration Court, a chance to explain why she sought refuge in the United States. As she waited, she clutched her heart repeatedly, taking deep, shuddering breaths. Her son looked up at her with wide eyes, and her worried face morphed into a smile. She sat him on her lap facing forward, wrapped her arms around him and whispered soft Spanish into his ear. He smiled. She wept silent tears behind his head. But this mother’s asylum case was about to be derailed — and hers was not the only one. As the Trump administration grows more aggressive in pursuing its mass deportation campaign, the Department of Homeland Security has increasingly relied on a legal strategy known as “pretermission” to remove asylum seekers en masse by sending them to third countries, immigration attorneys told The Denver Post. Every asylum case called up in Burgie’s courtroom Tuesday morning was met with a motion for pretermission filed by Homeland Security attorneys. More than 500 such motions were filed in Colorado last year, part of a practice that’s being seen in federal immigration courts across the nation, according to an independent analysis of court data. Immigration attorneys told The Post that nearly all of their clients going through the asylum process in Colorado have been told by Homeland Security in recent weeks that their cases in the U.S. should be terminated and they will instead be forced to find refuge in countries such as Honduras or Ecuador — regardless of whether they’ve ever been to those places. “It seems like a deliberate attempt for the government to strip them of their right to file asylum in this country,” said Jose Rosales, a Denver immigration attorney. The U.S. asylum process is a legal means for people facing persecution or violence in their home countries to find safety. But with a backlog of nearly 4 million cases nationwide, asylum seekers wait years for their cases to be heard. Historically, they’ve been able to wait in the U.S. as the process plays out, but that’s changing as the federal government seeks faster removals. “What Trump is doing now is gutting any way for someone to get asylum,” Rosales said.  “A lot of these people are probably going to lose their lives. They should at least have a right to a hearing.” ‘Safe third countries’ Pretermission of an asylum case is when an asylum application is denied without a merits hearing. Primarily, Homeland Security lawyers are citing what are known as asylum cooperative agreements — deals foreign countries have made with the U.S. to take in a certain number of asylum seekers — as grounds for denying people asylum in the U.S., according to immigration attorneys. Homeland Security officials did not respond to The Post’s request for comment for this story. However, the agency told The New York Times that those agreements are being used to “address the backlog and abuse of the asylum system,” and they allow people to pursue asylum claims in other countries where they do not fear persecution. But immigration advocates say the process risks dumping vulnerable people into unsafe countries they’ve never been to with no resources. During Tuesday’s court hearing, Homeland Security attorneys asked the judge to dismiss the case of every asylum seeker and, instead, remove them from the U.S. to seek asylum in Honduras or Ecuador, which the government referred to as “safe third countries.” In a 2024 travel advisory, the U.S. Department of State recommended people reconsider traveling to Honduras due to crime. A 2025 State Department travel advisory recommended people exercise increased caution traveling to Ecuador due to “crime, terrorism, unrest and kidnapping.” Judges often grant the government’s pretermission motions, though the asylum seekers can appeal and delay their removal. Before the Trump administration, pretermission was not a commonly used immigration strategy, according to the analysis of federal court data by mathematician Joseph Gunther and civic technologist Brandon Marrow. But it has surged since last year. Only 38 pretermission motions were recorded in the U.S. in March 2025 before the strategy caught on within the federal administration, according to Gunther and Marrow’s analysis. By mid-December, Homeland Security attorneys were filing the motions in more than 1,000 cases per day, they found. Last year, Homeland Security filed 322 pretermission motions in Denver Immigration Court and another 203 in cases involving detainees at Aurora’s ICE detention center, according to Gunther and Marrow’s analysis. It’s not clear, however, how many of those cases ultimately resulted in deportation to third countries. Nationally, federal immigration judges granted more than 6,700 Homeland Security pretermission requests in 2025, the analysis found. The consequences of the massive increase in pretermission motions is unclear, said Monique Sherman, detention program managing attorney with the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network. Homeland Security is not required to prove that the country they’re suggesting the asylum seeker be deported to is even willing or able to take them, meaning many people are left sitting in U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement detention awaiting an unknown fate, Sherman said. “It would be one thing if they were allowed to finish their asylum case to see if they were eligible to receive protection from deportation to their home country, but they’re not,” Sherman said, noting some of the clients she’s seen have had pretermission motions filed in the middle of their trials or hours beforehand. “If six months down the road we find out Honduras won’t take them, they’re going to have to start over in their hearing and presenting evidence and, quite frankly, it seems like an effort to get people to give up on their cases,” she said. ‘Tried everything I am supposed to do’ One of Rosales’ clients is a Venezuelan asylum-seeker living in Denver who spoke to The Post on condition of anonymity so she could candidly discuss the immigration process without fear of retribution. The woman and her children fled gang violence in Venezuela, walking through jungles and enduring extreme elements to reach the U.S. and apply for asylum in 2023, she told The Post through a translator. A year ago, she came to Denver. She updated her address with ICE, which placed an ankle monitor on her to track her whereabouts. In mid-December, she appeared in federal immigration court for her asylum hearing and said she walked out in tears. The Homeland Security attorney told her they wanted to dismiss her asylum application in this country and instead send her to Ecuador. “I told her I didn’t want to go to Ecuador,” the woman said. “That the same gang from Venezuela had been expanding, and I knew they were also in Ecuador. I was nervous. I was crying. They told me I had to write a letter explaining why I didn’t want to go to Ecuador and that I had 10 days.” The woman found a volunteer outside the courtroom who gave her information about local immigration attorneys. She connected with Rosales, who took her case. She fears she’ll be taken into custody by ICE — worried she’ll be separated from the two children who live with her. (A third child is with their father in another state, she said.) “I’m really depressed now,” she told The Post. “I’m not taking care of myself. I’m barely eating. I’ve tried to do everything I am supposed to do. My children ask what will happen to them if they take me. I just want to be with my children.” Rosales is appealing his client’s pretermission. “I don’t think this is going to last,” Rosales said. “The government, since Trump has been in office, has been trying to do all these sly tricks to take people’s rights away, so eventually somebody is going to come down with a federal ruling that this is illegal. We’re trying to keep people here as long as we can, so hopefully we can reopen their cases.” Rosales has been trying to reach as many people at free immigration clinics as possible because he said so many don’t know this is happening. “If you haven’t had a motion to pretermission yet and you’re an asylum seeker, it’s going to happen,” he said. Joanne Belknap provides immigrants with information about their rights and bears witness to any potential U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement activity in front of the Byron Rogers Federal Building in Denver on Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025. (Photo by Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post) Asylum seekers ‘just blindsided by this’ In court on Tuesday, Judge Burgie — speaking through an interpreter — explained to the asylum seekers before her that Homeland Security attorneys were filing motions to dismiss their asylum applications in the U.S. and send them elsewhere to seek sanctuary. She explained their options, asking whether the asylum seekers understood. Sometimes they shook their heads, indicating they did not, and she tried to explain the complex process again. “I understand you might not agree with what I’m saying, but I need you to indicate you at least understand what I’m saying,” Bergie said. Sherman, with the Immigrant Advocacy Network, said the pretermission process raises significant due process concerns. “If somebody has never been to a country, they really deserve some time to learn about that country and figure out if they think they would be safe there and to be able to come up with those arguments,” Sherman said. “This is concerning in all cases, but when somebody has an attorney, we’re able to at least give them a fighting chance, and we have won several oppositions to these motions. 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The mother walked out of the courtroom clutching her son and found an advocate with the Immigrant Advocacy Network in the lobby to explain her options. As the advocate spoke with the mother, the boy in the green sneakers played with a box of toys left in the corner of the room. “People have a right to due process in this country and that right is completely being taken away right now,” Rosales said. Get more Colorado news by signing up for our daily Your Morning Dozen email newsletter. ...read more read less