In this episode of The Rule of Law Brief, Nate Charles explains a largely unnoticed but deeply consequential move by the Department of Homeland Security: the use of pretermission to deny asylum seekers a hearing altogether.
DHS and ICE are invoking an obscure provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act to argue that asylum claims can be dismissed without a merits hearing if a third country is willing to accept the applicant. The Trump administration’s recent executive agreement with Uganda—not ratified by Congress—is now being used to justify mass pretermission of asylum cases.
This episode breaks down:
* What pretermission is and why it is so dangerous
* How DHS is using an executive agreement to bypass asylum hearings
* Why Uganda’s designation as an “asylum cooperative country” is legally and factually suspect
* Uganda’s documented failure in a nearly identical “safe third country” arrangement with Israel
* How this maneuver quietly erases due process without legislation, headlines, or public debate
The result, if allowed to stand, is an asylum system where hearings do not end because Congress repealed the law—but because they simply stop happening.
The Rule of Law Brief cuts through political noise to explain how power is actually being exercised—and abused—inside the legal system. If you care about due process, constitutional limits, and how technical legal moves reshape real lives, subscribe and stay informed.
