Ecuadorian National Deported to Ecuador After Abandoning Asylum Claim Following Five Months in ICE Detention

Willian Yacelga Benalcazar told an immigration judge he feared returning to Ecuador but was ordered deported to Honduras. By March 2026 he had spent five months in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention. He was transferred between five detention facilities, spent most of his time in Eloy, Arizona, and was handcuffed for an entire day during some transfers.

Yacelga caught a virus, fought for food and drank water contaminated with chlorine while in detention. His wife, children and legal team remained in New York. For over a month his family and attorney did not know where he was.

A judge denied his request to bond out of detention. Yacelga asked to be sent back to Ecuador rather than continue fighting his asylum 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," he said. S. -Mexico border illegally in August 2023, and was arrested for larceny and criminal possession of stolen property.

Yacelga said he was never prosecuted and the charges were pending when he was detained. He was deported to Ecuador on April 16, 2026. The spokesperson added that an immigration judge ordered him deported to Ecuador last month.

Yacelga told CBS News from Ecuador about two weeks after his deportation that he struggles to sleep and still battles symptoms from the virus he caught in detention. "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, referring to his family in New York.

" The Trump administration's third-country deportation efforts have affected far more cases than the number of removals.

About 17,500 people have been deported to third countries since President Trump returned to office, according to Third Country Deportation Watch. The vast majority of the 17,500 third-country deportations were to Mexico. That figure represents about 2% of total deportations carried out during President Trump's second term so far.

More than 75,500 asylum cases received a motion to pretermit through March 31, 2026, according to a CBS News analysis of immigration court data. Motions to pretermit were relatively rare until October 2025. That month the Board of Immigration Appeals ruled that immigration judges should decide on motions for third-country removal before considering asylum qualifications.

Honduras, Guatemala, Ecuador and Uganda have signed asylum cooperative agreements with the Trump administration. S. through March 31, 2026.

More than 24,000 people received removal orders to third countries after a motion to pretermit their case was filed. Honduras has agreed to accept 10 non-Honduran deportees per month. More than 6,300 non-Hondurans had a deportation order to Honduras by the end of March 2026.

About 60 people had been removed to Honduras as of late April 2026, according to Third Country Deportation Watch. In mid-March 2026, ICE attorneys received an email directing them not to file new motions to pretermit cases. Cases where motions to pretermit had already been filed could continue after the mid-March 2026 email.

A federal lawsuit against the practice of pretermitting asylum cases under third-country agreements is currently pending. About 13,300 cases — more than half of those with third-country removal orders — are stalled while immigrants appeal their removal. The Board of Immigration Appeals decided less than 1% of the third-country removal appeals by the end of March 2026.

Last year the Board of Immigration Appeals took an average of two years to rule on a case decision appeal. About 1,800 people with third-country removal orders were in detention as of the end of March 2026. The BIA's turnaround for those in detention averaged about 10 months last year.

CBS News analyzed EOIR data on immigration court proceedings for asylum cases from January 1, 2025, through March 31, 2026.