Their Hatred Knows No Bounds

They are sending people to their deaths, and the administration seems to revel in it. Their hostility toward LGBTQ+ individuals apparently knows no limits.

Trump admin is trying to deport LGBTQ+ asylum-seekers to countries where they'd be killed, lawyers say

Attorneys say new transfer agreements and court tactics allow the U.S. to sidestep asylum rulings, risking removals to countries where LGBTQ+ people face imprisonment, torture, or execution.

The Advocate

Christopher Wiggins

Jan 29, 2026

The Trump administration is quietly advancing immigration policies that attorneys and LGBTQ+ advocates say could send asylum seekers to their deaths, including by transferring queer and transgender people to countries such as Uganda and Iran, where same-sex relationships and gender nonconformity are criminalized and can be punished by imprisonment, torture, or execution.

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LGBTQ+ asylum seekers facing possible removal to Uganda

Much of the concern centers on Uganda, where LGBTQ people face some of the most severe legal penalties in the world. Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act, passed in 2023, prescribes life imprisonment for consensual same-sex relationships and allows for the death penalty in cases labeled “aggravated homosexuality.” The law also criminalizes what it calls the “promotion” of homosexuality, a provision that human rights groups say has been used to justify arrests, harassment, and the suppression of LGBTQ+ advocacy.

Ugandan authorities have continued to arrest men accused of same-sex conduct under these laws.

“Uganda is not a safe place for LGBTQ people,” Wolf said. “The idea that we would send people there to try to adjudicate their protection claims is deeply concerning.”

There is a law in the US that says you cannot do that! The Carr-Ryan Center for Human Rights at the Harvard Kennedy School writes in The U.S. Refugee Re-Vetting Order Violates the Principle of Non-Refoulement that,

It marks a profound shift in how the United States interprets one of its core obligations under international law: the prohibition on refoulement, the principle that forbids returning a person to a country where their life or freedom would be threatened. By turning refugee status from a durable legal commitment into a conditional category subject to political reinterpretation, the administration is testing the limits of what non-refoulement can withstand.

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U.S. jurisprudence mirrors the international cases. In Matter of Toboso-Alfonso the Board of Immigration Appeals recognized sexual orientation as a basis for a “particular social group”.  In Avendano-Hernandez v. Lynch, the Ninth Circuit held that a transgender woman who suffered police and military abuse in Mexico faced a clear probability of torture if returned. In Bringas-Rodriguez v. Sessions, the court rejected the notion that LGBTQI+ survivors of violence must first seek protection from authorities known to persecute them.These decisions affirm that criminalization and state-enabled violence meet the threshold that “life or freedom would be threatened.” There is no question that the United States has long recognized this standard, even as current policy drifts from it.

There is no question that the United States has long recognized this standard, yet the current administration shows a complete lack of respect for these laws.