Ter Apel, a small Dutch town near the German border, is home to the Netherlands' largest refugee camp, housing 2,000 asylum seekers. In recent months, a surprising new group has arrived: Americans, many of them transgender, fleeing what they describe as a hostile environment under President Donald Trump.
Last year, 76 Americans claimed asylum in the Netherlands, up from nine in 2024, according to the Dutch asylum and immigration ministry. Unlike the UK, the Netherlands houses asylum seekers in fenced-off reception centres, not hotels or houses.
Jane-Michelle Arc, a 47-year-old transgender software engineer from San Francisco, arrived at Schiphol airport in April last year, sobbing as she asked a customs officer how to claim asylum. She said the US had become so hostile that she stopped leaving her home unless an Uber was waiting. After a frightening incident where she feared a woman would run her over, she resolved to leave.
Arc was sent to Ter Apel, where she spent her first days in a small, graffiti-covered room. She was later moved to what she calls 'the queer block', a block for LGBT asylum seekers. There, she found common ground with trans people from Iran, Libya, and other countries, all of whom feared their governments and fellow citizens.
Ashe Wilde, a trans man who arrived in late October, said anti-trans hate in the US has grown since he transitioned in 2019. Both Arc and Wilde insist that their experiences in the US were similar to those of trans people from countries often seen as less tolerant.
