Dozens of LGBTQIA+ Americans have fled to Netherlands since Trump took office

At least dozens, but likely many more Americans from the LGBTQIA+ community have fled to the Netherlands in recent months out of fear of Donald Trump’s policies, AD reports after surveying organizations involved in helping them. The number of American asylum applications is already higher than in the whole of 2024, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (IND) told the newspaper.

Since Trump took office for his second term as United States president, the American government implemented policy to only recognize two genders, ban rainbow flags from government buildings, scrap the funding of transgender care for young people, and officially ban terms like “gender identity,” “non-binary,” and “transsexual.” Some conservative states are going even further. Arkansas, for example, is trying to ban hairstyles that “do not match” the gender children were assigned at birth.

Organizations like Transgender Network, LGBT Asylum Support, and Trans Rescue told AD that Trump is causing great unrest in the American LGBTQIA+ community. They all report an enormous increase in requests from Americans to find housing in the Netherlands. LGBT Asylum Support alone has received over 50 requests for aid since Trump took office.

“Our people are really afraid of persecution,” Wesley de Robles of Immigration Netherlands Services, an organization that helps American entrepreneurs obtain residency in the Netherlands via the Dutch-American Friendship Treaty (DAFT), told the newspaper. The treaty, intended to promote business relations, states that Americans who register as an entrepreneur with the Chamber of Commerce and present a business plan may be eligible for a residency permit.

According to De Robles, many transgender people, in particular, are using this route to flee the United States. “Since Trump, we have received around 30 applications every month, more than half of which come from the LGBTI community.” Before Trump, there were only a handful of applications per month.

The IND is also seeing an increase in asylum requests from Americans. In the first three months of 2025, there were 20 applications, while in previous years, between 9 and 19 Americans sought asylum in the Netherlands over a whole year. About half of the applicants are transgender, Transgender Network told AD, based on data from asylum doctors.

Fewer people use the official asylum route because the IND applies strict conditions. Only those who are at serious risk of persecution or inhumane treatment have a chance. LGBT Asylum Support has, therefore, asked Asylum Minister Marjolein Faber to “recognize the deteriorating situation for transgender people as a reason for asylum.”

But Faber refused. The PVV Minister responded that Trump’s policy “gives no reason to assume that transgender people should fear persecution.” So the conditions for asylum will remain unchanged, she said.

Americans living in the Netherlands will hold a protest in front of the American consulate on Saturday, one of the organizers told NL Times. The protest is not specifically due to Trump’s treatment of the LGBTQIA+ community, but against the American government’s “violation of due process rights” in general. This follows several immigrants being taken from American streets and detained in “a brutal prison in El Salvador.”

The demonstration will happen at 1:00 p.m. on Saturday in front of the American consulate on the Museumplein in Amsterdam, which is currently closed for renovations. “On April 19, we gather to say loudly and clearly: Hands Off Our Due Process Rights!” the organizer said.