LGBTQ+ Americans are fleeing the US in record numbers because of Trump Archive | Article
Daniel Villarreal (he/him)June 22, 2026, 6:00 pm EDT
A record number of LGBTQ+ people in the U.S. are fleeing the president’s anti-transgender policies by seeking asylum in other countries, according to a report released last Saturday by the LGBTQ+ asylum relocation assistance group Rainbow Railroad.
Simultaneously, fewer LGBTQ+ refugees from other anti-queer countries are seeking asylum in the U.S., a result of the president’s anti-immigration policies, according to the group’s report, Understanding the State of Global LGBTQI+ Persecution, which was released on World Refugee Day.
Last year, Rainbow Railroad received 20,215 direct requests for relocation assistance from queer and trans people, a 51% increase from 2024 and the highest number of requests the group has received since its 2006 founding.
Approximately 31% of last year’s requests came from people living in the U.S. — the previous year, that percentage was about 13%. While past requests to leave the U.S. had previously predominantly come from queer immigrants who had been resettled in the states, about 88% of the requests in 2025 came from American citizens who said they were fleeing the current administration’s anti-LGBTQ+ policies.
Exactly 1,177 U.S. residents reached out to Rainbow Railroad support the day after the president was re-elected, Rainbow Railroad’s Chief Programs Officer Devon Matthews told The Los Angeles Blade.
“That single day generated more than twice the number of requests for help we had received from across the United States during the previous 10 months combined,” Matthews said.
The U.S. has made asylum nearly impossible for queer refugees
Rebekah Wolf, an attorney with the American Immigration Council, who has spent over 10 years giving free legal services to asylum seekers, told TIME magazine that immigration courts under Trump have dramatically refused LGBTQ+ refugees, something that rarely occurred in her experience before his 2024 re-election.Queer refugees seeking asylum in the U.S. used to apply for aid under the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP), a 1980 federal program that has helped millions fleeing persecution in their home countries relocate safely in the United States.
However, on January 20, the president issued an executive order entitled “Realigning the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program,” which halted refugee admissions indefinitely, ending USRAP and freezing millions in congressionally appropriated program funding. The order caused immediate chaos among the 32,000 refugees who had already been approved under the program, leaving them in legal limbo and cutting them off from vital survival benefits offered by various federally-funded resettlement groups.
Over 233,000 refugees were resettled through USRAP during the Biden Administration. But from October 2025 until May 2026, the U.S. has accepted only 6,668 USRAP refugees — over 99% have been white South Africans allegedly fleeing anti-white discrimination, the U.S. government claims.
Terry-Kay Walker, a 38-year-old transgender woman, fled her home country of Jamaica for Colombia and was approved for the USRAP until the president’s order left her stranded there in the Spanish-speaking country. Unable to speak Spanish and struggling to pay for housing or food, Rainbow Railroad eventually helped her relocate to Canada.
Trump is deporting LGBTQ+ refugees to anti-LGBTQ+ “third countries”
Even LGBTQ+ refugees currently living in the U.S. fear detention or deportation, Wolf added. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has detained many of her queer and trans clients and attempted to deport several of them to one of 30 so-called “third countries” that are neither their countries of origin nor the countries of their most recent residence. These deportations occur even when judges’ protective orders have specifically directed ICE not to.Many of these third countries have anti-LGBTQ+ policies, Wolf said: “One of my biggest fears is that people will agree to self-deport—essentially agree to go back to their country of origin—because the fear of a trans person from El Salvador being sent to Uganda is, in some instances, more frightening or more dangerous.”
To help LGBTQ+ people who have already relocated in the U.S., Rainbow Railroad launched Communities of Care, a volunteer-driven nationwide ecosystem of post-relocation services that help LGBTQ+ migrants navigate unfamiliar systems, build social connections, and begin rebuilding their lives, Matthews said.
But while volunteers’ commitment has been “extraordinary,” Matthews said that this effort cannot replace the refugee resettlement programs, legal services, or a functioning asylum system that the current administration has dismantled.
“As need grows and public support shrinks, the gap between what communities can provide and what governments should provide continues to widen,” Matthews said.
Daniel Villarreal is a longtime, award-winning journalist and editor who has written for NBC News, Newsweek, Vox, Slate, Vice News, The Seattle Stranger, The Dallas Voice and numerous other LGBTQ+ publications. He has spoken at SXSW, Creating Change, Netroots Nation, GaymerX, and is a graduate of GLAAD's Voices of Color program and of the Poynter Institute's 2024 Power of Diverse Voices seminar. He is also the founder of QueerBomb Dallas, an annual non-corporate Pride event; CinéWilde, the nation's longest running monthly LGBTQ film series. He is available for interviews and educational talks.
