Discussions are reportedly taking place within Donald Trump's administration about the possibility of granting asylum to Jewish people from the United Kingdom, according to the Telegraph. Trump's personal lawyer, Robert Garson, told the newspaper he has held conversations with the US State Department about offering refuge to British Jews who are leaving the UK due to rising antisemitism.
Garson, a former British barrister who moved to the US in 2008, said he felt the UK was “no longer a safe place for Jews”. He cited an Islamist attack on a synagogue in Manchester and what he described as widespread antisemitism following the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October 2023. Garson said he could see “no future” for Jews in the UK and blamed Prime Minister Keir Starmer for allowing antisemitism to grow.
Garson told the Telegraph: “I have spoken to the state department as to whether the president should be offering British Jews asylum in the US.” He described British Jews as “a highly educated community” that “speaks English natively, that is educated and doesn’t have a high proportion of criminals”. He said he raised the idea with Trump's special envoy to combat antisemitism, Yehuda Kaploun, in his role as a board member of the US Holocaust Memorial Council.
A 2025 survey by the Institute for Jewish Policy Research found that 35% of Jews felt unsafe in Britain, up from 9% in 2023. Perceptions of antisemitism as a “very big” problem rose to 47% from 11% in 2012. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In October, the Trump administration announced plans to restrict refugee admissions to 7,500 in 2026, mostly reserved for white South Africans. It was not clear how British Jews would fit into that figure.
