Ter Apel, a small, unassuming Dutch town near the German border, is a place tourists rarely have on their itinerary. There are no lovely old windmills, no cannabis-filled coffee shops and on a recent visit it was far too early for tulip season.
When foreigners end up there, it is for one reason: to claim asylum at the Netherlands’ biggest refugee camp, home to 2,000 desperate people from all around the world.
Many of the American refugees, like Jane-Michelle Arc, a 47-year-old software engineer from San Francisco, are transgender. In April last year she flew into Schiphol airport in Amsterdam and, sobbing, asked a customs officer how to claim asylum. “And they laughed because: what’s this big dumb American doing here asking about asylum? And then they realised I was serious.”
Arc said the US had become such a hostile environment for trans people that she had stopped leaving the house “unless there was an Uber waiting outside”. She said she had been abused on the street and using the ladies’ toilets, and resolved to leave the country after a frightening incident when she feared a woman was going to run her over with her truck.
Unfortunately, her case will almost surely be denied since the US has been designated a safe country by Dutch officials, and the trend in most of Europe, under pressure from racist voters and the surging popularity of fascism, is to make the already extremely strict asylum rules even stricter. In some cases (e.g. Denmark) refugee asylum has been all but abolished, in an egregious violation of treaties on assisting refugees (and preventing genocide).
The good news for people like Arc is that for US citizens it is overwhelmingly easier to obtain residency status legally in the EU in countries like the Netherlands, compared to getting a Green Card in the US. She probably should have figured that out before panicking and booking that flight.
Not only that, but there are states in the U.S. that are still relatively safe compared to the rest. Massachusetts, Vermont, Rhode Island… isn’t it easier to move there than to flee?
The places in the US that are safer for minorities are also the first places that will be targeted for Trump’s domestic military occupation. If you’re trans and paying attention to how things are playing out, those are the places you go to seek solidarity and fight, not to flee and seek asylum.
I feel for trans folks. Such an idiotic thing to fixate on them.
Oh but the pedophiles on certain files… sacred protection, right???
If you have money, sure, but the interviewed woman left San Francisco, which is a place most people would move to, if they were trying to escape violence.
If you are not top 10% going to live in poverty in Europe probably seems more attractive than living in poverty in a blue state.
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Especially being an IT professional and going to the Netherlands. DAFT visas, which are for entrepreneurs seem to be one of the most common ways to get into the EU.