Immigration attorneys and advocates are sounding the alarm over a new Trump administration rule that could send hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers into deportation proceedings without ever getting a hearing.The rule, which took effect immediately Tuesday without prior public input, allows officials to transfer as many as 444,724 pending asylum cases — nearly a third of the 1.4 million backlog at USCIS — directly to Justice Department immigration judges, reported the Washington Post.Because those judges have been empowered to dismiss certain cases without a hearing, attorneys warn many asylum seekers could be removed from the country with no chance to make their case at all.Attorney Ira Kurzban, who represented Haitian immigrants in a related Supreme Court case, described the move as part of a broader strategy to "take legal people and make them illegal," which he said betrays United Nations protections for refugees and turns the asylum system into a "joke."“At a 30,000-foot level it sure looks like a deportation machine,” he said.Advocates are especially troubled that the new rule targets largely asylum seekers who filed more than a year after arriving, a technical deadline under federal law that judges can normally waive in extraordinary circumstances. Immigration courts don't provide public defenders, and advocates say people fleeing persecution are often unfamiliar with U.S. filing deadlines — meaning legitimate claims could be swept up and denied a fair review.The rule arrives as the administration prepares to terminate Temporary Protected Status work permits for Haitians and Syrians, following a Supreme Court ruling that allowed those protections to lapse. Lawyers say immigrants in both groups who also have pending asylum claims could now face deportation on two fronts simultaneously.Trump officials defend the rule as necessary to stop the asylum system from being "exploited" for delay and work authorization. But for critics, the rule's immediate effect, its bypassing of standard review, and its potential to strip due process from vulnerable applicants mark a significant escalation in the administration's push to reshape U.S. asylum policy.