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  • Alexander Zaytsev

Getting Out With Little Funds

Busted flat in Baton Rouge, waiting for a train?

You can still get out.  You will, admittedly, need a little money, but it’s door dash money, not $10,000.

Remember that most people who are refugees are far poorer than you. The Pakistani guy who’s made his way to the Calais jungle started with a nest egg, but it’s been a long trip and it’s long gone. They do it and you can too, if your life depends on it.

This article assumes you are not on disability, simply to make things clearer. We’ll have another article on disability payments. Here we’ll assume you’re just working a low-paying, entry level job or are unemployed, struggling to get by.

It also assumes you’ve watched one of the info sessions. If not, that’s your first stop.

Some Strategies that don’t require as much money

Go to Canada or Mexico. They are closer. It may not make that much difference to travel costs, but it does to your ability to retreat to the USA and try again if it’s not working. If you find a job in Canada you can apply under CUSMA.

Air travel is cheap but you need shelter at the destination. Ground travel means you can carry some minimal camping shelter with you. Google advice on getting cheap tickets.

Join an Au Pair program.  Some one else pays your living expenses. Downside – you now have a crummy job taking care of someone else’s kid.

Backpacking travel – Combine with volunteer tourism.

Live on the border – Don’t truly emigrate, but move near the Canadian border. Go over the border more and more and apply for jobs. When you get a job offer, use CUSMA to get a permit.

Slow down – Make an emergency leave plan, even if it’s unattractive: “I have a bugout bag and passport. In an emergency I’ll take a bus to Windsor and figure out how to survive.”  Then make a better plan that involves saving like crazy until spring.

It is going to be hard, but others have done it.  You may have to leave your stuff behind or sell precious treasures.  You may have to work even though you’re on disability. Some comfortable habits (buying weed or eating delivery) may need to be broken. You are going to need to be resourceful, imaginative, and willing.

Mostly, you are going to need to be self-reliant. Gofundme, #mutualaid, and similar requests are going to dry up. Everyone is in trouble and aid is spread thin.

There are options! Here’s 26 more unusual ways people are supporting themselves in new locations. Many require little/no money. You may have transferable skills or knowledge that you can apply in new areas. Or you can do manual labor or entry-level data entry. Everyone starts somewhere.

Group Tactics

Form an affinity group.  One of you has a big tent, another is just more resourceful. One of you is a decent mechanic when the shared car breaks down. Another knows how to camp. Help each other and share knowledge.

Here are some tactics for your group to use:

Share resources – one person has a good car, another is a shade tree mechanic, another plays an instrument and can busk (play on the street for donations).

Pool finances and send one person. When they’re established, then others go join them. This is how many immigrants got to the USA out of Nazi Germany, and how many got from the “old country” to the USA historically.

Live 6 in an apartment for a month. It won’t be comfortable, but at the end of the month you have 5 rents.

Get on community buy/sell boards or gig sites and offer services together, like moving.

Demand everyone contribute – don’t take dead wood or problematic people with you.

Ways to Earn Money Quick

Work an event – Check online, they are often looking for people to work events (catering service, concerts, etc.).

Busk – If you can play an instrument, stand on a downtown street and play with a hat in front of you.

Sign – makes $5-$10 an hour.

Sell your stuff – if it’s not going with you, sell it on ebay.

Door Dash – if you are in their system in one city you can do it anywhere.

Sell something on Etsy – crochet something cute and easy to make. You can do it anywhere. Or there are loads of digital products you can make and sell entirely online.

Get on community buy/sell boards or gig sites and offer services like tutoring.

Conclusion

We are in a crisis, and we want you all to survive. It will be hard, but it is possible. Go, and may the spirit of all trans people before you go with you.

How Accommodation Sharing Might Work

Donald Trump won the 2024 Presidential election, and since anti-trans rhetoric has been a central plank of both his campaign and the policies behind it, the prospects are not looking good for America’s trans people. Our advice to trans Americans is to leave the USA in any way possible before he has a chance to clamp down, so this document will consider how the trans community in safer parts of the world can ensure that there are adequate support structures in place when that happens. Our target audience today then are trans groups, allies, and activists outside the USA, who will be instrumental in providing that help.

Providing Safe Accommodation

What do we mean when we talk about help and support? Many arrivals from America will have nowhere to go, so safe accommodation will be of the most use to them. We don’t expect that support to spontaneously arise from the wider community as it did with the Ukrainian refugees, instead it’s up to us in the trans community to step up to the plate.

Others will be needed to help them with legal or immigration issues, meanwhile the most important thing for them on arrival will be to know that they will not end up on the streets. This accommodation is, we think, best provided by individuals sharing their spare bedrooms or similar, and not by attempts to set up safe houses. A safe house is a complex thing to set up and get right, and on our travels we have seen more than one with significant problems.

This is too big for a single group

Here at Trans Rescue, we know that our small network will not be anywhere near enough to handle the likely numbers of trans Americans needing help. To provide that support it will be necessary for a much wider coming together of groups and individuals to work in unison. This is a much bigger task than any single group can handle.

It will be difficult for one international body to coordinate their support from a central point, so we think that each country should have its own groups meeting the needs of its arrivals. This could be a single point in the case of a small country, or a grouping of regional or provincial ones in the case of large countries such as Canada.

We would expect that national or regional groups would work with each other in some way at a higher level, indeed we view this cooperation as essential. Our experience shows that when such entities fail to talk to each other it is inevitable that some passengers will disappear in the voids left between them. When lives are at stake there is no room for egos.

How can this be done?

So, who is going to do this? It’s likely that there will be many activists willing to take up the baton, but we’d like to exercise a word of caution about going it alone. This is much too large a task for a single person, particularly one who is learning on the job. Down that road lies burnout and failure, so given the short time available to organise, it’s imperative that people work together.

Whoever does it, the very nature of the job will require an extensive network to be built in a very short time, and the best placed to do this might be some of the existing support structures. Over the last few years we’ve seen very effective activism in the field of trans healthcare, and we’re guessing that groups of that nature might be best placed to provide the necessary networks. Working with local trans support groups that could find the people on the ground with spare capacity, and perhaps more importantly vouch for their not being problematic, they could then match those hosts with their arrivals.

It’s likely that running such an operation will require some significant time from those involved. Far from simply putting up a website to match arrivals with hosts, this will need people to work the phones, maintain the network, check out issues on the ground, and support people wherever they end up. The volunteers running the operation will need to be aware they are making as significant a commitment as taking a second unpaid job for a few months, and it’s important that they do not overwork themselves and burn out.

We think that the trans communities in countries outside the USA can provide this level of support to trans Americans fleeing a Trump presidency. We hope that this document has given something of a pathway by which that can be done, and we are looking forward to working in whatever way we can with whatever groups appear in this space.

When this is eventually over, we all want to be able to look back at a successful operation to help those trans Americans who escaped Trump. Are you ready to join us?

Documents For Your Bugout Bag

Everyone should make a document bugout bag. This should be part of your physical bugout bag. This allows you and your family to move efficiently across borders, here’s a comprehensive list to ensure you’re prepared. These documents cover the most critical, helpful, and non-vital but beneficial items to include. Below is a list that you can check off as you go collecting these documents. This list is ideal. Do not get obsessed with gathering every one of these documents at the expense of getting out.

Most important:
☐ Birth Records (Long form or extended form and get it with apostilles ☐)
☐ Marriage and divorce records (With an apostille ☐) If you have been living with someone over 6 months and are in a relationship but not married have a copy of a joint lease or be able to show shared assets.
☐ Family court order (where only one parent has full custody of the child)
☐ Name change court order (if you have changed your name)
☐ Passport(s) (Make sure to get it with extra pages in the passport I recommend a passport card also. Most countries require you to have 6 months of validity also at least 2 free pages)

Less important but still very good to have:
☐ Birth record of your father
☐ Marriage record of your father & mother
☐ Marriage/divorce record of your father & mother
☐ Death record of your father
☐ Birth record of your mother
☐ Death record of your mother
☐ Flash drive with the above and below documents scan on to.

Non vital documents that are good to have:

IDs:
☐  Global Entry Card (Entry into the US, Canada and Mexico easily)
☐  APEC card (Entry into the Asia-Pacific area easily)
☐  State ID or Driver’s license (If in the USA renewing apply for an enhanced ID or license if they do not offer that then a Real ID)
☐  Passport card or EU ID (this lets you travel by land/sea internationally EU ID can also be air but not the passport card)
☐  Translation of Driver’s license (This is only good for a year if in the US or up to three years in other countries so it’s better to get it when you have hard plans to leave the country you can get it from AAA even if the country does not require it some companies might when you try to rent a car like https://www.ouicar.com/ in France)

Education documents:
☐  Degree Official copy from the school. (This should be your highest completed education. This needs to be notarized then have an apostille attached to the notarized document.)
☐  Transcripts (This should be from your highest education even if you did not completed the program. This needs to be notarized then have an apostille attached to the notarized document.)
☐  Copy of your certifications / Licenses

Visa helpful documents:
☐ Visa/Passport photos (At least a set of two. This is needed for passports, visas, drivers license)
☐ Digital copy of passport photos (https://tsg.phototool.state.gov/photo)
☐ Copy of your resume/CV
☐ Color copy of your passport printed out
☐ Copy of lease or deed to the house you live in
☐ Copy of the title to any car or boat (proof of ties to your current country is needed for a lot of visas)
☐ Utility bills in your name for the last year (each month you should have a pdf)
☐ Bank statements for the last year (each month you should be able to generate a pdf of the bank statement)
☐ W2 for the last year
☐ Tax filing of last year
☐ A letter of employment

Other helpful documents:
☐  Ham Radio License (If you are a general or higher a number of countries will let you operate. You might need additional documents along with a translation.)
☐  COVID vaccination card
☐  Medical Records (If you request it for personal use and it can cost some money to get these records. Your doctor could request them for free but they might not with the other office being out of the country. Your doctor could delete your medical records if you have not seen them for X amount of time, X time changes by country and state by state in the US.)
☐  Copy of your Medical Insurance card
☐  Religious Records (This can be helpful in Israel’s Right of Return law or if your government can’t locate a birth, marriage or death record.)
☐  Car Insurance cancellation Statement (This is a statement from your car insurance to show the number of years you have been a customer and how many claims you have made. Some companies call this a loss history report. The longer you can show no losses the better your rating will be.)
☐  Copy of your transit card(s)

Tip: Keep these documents well-organized, and consider waterproof, secure storage solutions for the physical copies. Digital backups should be encrypted and stored safely to prevent unauthorized access.

Post Election Assistance to the USA

It’s happened, and Donald Trump will be the next president of the United States, with all that means for trans Americans.

We wish we could offer all of you one of our individual consultations to help you form a plan to get out. But we’re not going to be able to do that.  Since the election was called, less than 3 days ago as we write this, we have received 130 requests for consults, and we expect the number to continue to grow. That’s far more than we can handle in a timely manner.  So we are offering different services during this time.

Email. If you have emailed us asking for a 1 on 1 consultation, we are going to try to read every email you have sent. If we think a question won’t be covered by our other services, we’ll respond with an individual email besides our mail merge email. We continue to be reachable for questions at

usa-campaign@transrescue.org

but please attend one of our YouTube sessions first.

Streams We are going to be having a series of YouTube streams. Anyone can participate in these, and there will be a way to ask questions and have them answered.  Some of these will be general information, and some will be on specific topics. We recommend first attending one of the general sessions, and then the one on a specific topic. There is a calendar embedded in this page below with times. We will record the live streams.

This is the link for the YouTube live stream.

Office Hours. We will be having office hours. You can show up on an open Google Meet and talk with one of our staff.  We ask everyone to first participate in one of our YouTube streams, as space in office hours is limited and better used for questions not handled by the presentations. Here’s the link for the office hours. See the calendar below for times:

Google Meet joining info
Video call link: https://meet.google.com/fez-emmc-ryy
Or dial: 617-675-4444   PIN: 485 383 284 2751#
More phone numbers: https://tel.meet/fez-emmc-ryy?pin=4853832842751

Mutual Aid. We are organizing mutual aid resources, both in and outside the USA.  We are collecting names of those who have a sofa and will host a trans person, those who can give you a spot in the outbuilding on their farm, those who can drive you to a border, and so on. If you can offer such resources, email volunteer@transrescue.org

Fifth, we are publishing more information all the time. Check out our website, particularly this article (bit dated, but still valid), our YouTube channel, and follow us on Mastodon @trans_rescue@mastodon.social. We still also have a presence on the bird site as @Trans_Rescue .

What to know up front

The situation is not hopeless. Of the roughly 80 Americans we’ve spoken with in consults before the election, we were able to help all of them come up with a realistic plan to get out.

You need a passport. If you don’t have one, it’s the first step. If you haven’t applied, we suggest attending a help webinar first. We will have some info about how to best apply in the current situation. If you can’t afford one, attend our session on leaving while poor.

We cannot give you money to help you leave. We continue to help people in Iran, Saudi Arabia, and other incredibly deadly places. We believe anyone can leave, regardless of financial circumstance, on their own. We will have a special session addressing getting out if you have little or no money.

Many of you have written to us about asylum options. Asylum is not a realistic option for leaving. Conditions for trans people in the USA at this time do not support an asylum claim.  We will have a special event on asylum, but the TL;DR is it’s mostly unrealistic.

Sending us material about what you think will happen in the USA is not helpful. We’re not interested in predicting the future. We help people leave.

We are in the Netherlands. We would love to do more sessions at evening time, but this means being up at 3am for us. We feel being coherent is important during these broadcasts.

We will have a special session on dealing with disability and disability payments.

Special Sessions –

See calendar for times.

Volunteer tourism – Nov 15 – a way to drastically cut the cost of living outside the USA.

Canada – Nov 17 – Canadian visa options

DAFT treaty visa and remote worker visas – Nov 18 – The Netherlands has an attractive visa program for Americans who can deposit 5500$ in an account and leave it and have a college degree or extensive job experience and will start a business (usually a consultancy) in the Netherlands.

Getting out with few financial resources  –  Nov 19 – We think everybody can get out. Even if you’re not sure how you’ll pay the rent next month.   DATE CHANGED – Now on Google Meet.

Volunteer Tourism – Nov 20 – This option combines work and a holiday. This is a popular option for cis young people, but is increasingly a way to increase mobility for folks around the world.  DATE CHANGED

Citizenship by investment or heritage – Nov 22 – If you have ancestors from somewhere else, within 3-4 generations but especially within 1 or 2, you may be eligible for citizenship there. If you have equity in a home or own a business you may be able to move the investment and be given citizenship where you move.

Disability – Nov 25 – untangling the complexities of moving when you are in the disability benefits system, or being disabled makes things more complex.

Session Calendar

This calendar is on Pacific time (Los Angeles)

 

2024 US Election

A dark cloud has fallen over America, and it may be many years before it is lifted. The moment we all dreaded has arrived, the Presidential election has been called for Donald Trump.

Trump’s supporters will undoubtedly act as though he is already president, and we expect in the immediate future they will act in the expectation that he will pardon any of their actions against people perceived as his enemies. We have already seen what MAGA followers were capable of on January 6th 2021, so we expect that their actions will be lawless. They have been primed for years to see trans people as the scapegoat for America’s problems, and as they search for victims it’s possible they might pick on their nearest one.

We Americans in the west’s vast spaces stop to help travelers broken down far from town. We have faith that many of our fellow Americans will, in the end, help us in our time of need. You will find among your fellow citizens those who will respect and protect you, but think about your day-to-day security, and act accordingly.

The one bright side is that, though Trump may have won the election it’s worth remembering that the Biden presidency lasts until the 20th of January. Between now and the inauguration there may be an increasing level of danger, but after that the conditions are certain to worsen precipitously.  We believe that a Trump presidency will end any notion of safe states or of sanctuary cities, and thus our advice remains that if at all possible, as a trans person you should consider leaving the USA. Ideally you should do this before January 20.

We have written at length about planning an exit, and we know that doing so in such a short time will necessitate some difficult choices. How you consider these is up to you, but start by getting yourself a passport if you don’t already have one. Then formulate your plan, whether it be getting on a plane or crossing a border, and once the document arrives, enact it. We know not everyone will escape the new American dictatorship, but we hope you can be one of those who does.

Good luck.

Closing Intake

We have ever more people seeking our help.

When we don’t feel like we can help the ‘average’ passenger within about 90 days, we feel it’s unfair to the passenger to tell them we are going to get them out or assure them they are somewhere in a who-knows-how-long waiting list.

We are now at that 90 day limit.  We are going to concentrate on getting passengers currently in the system to final destinations.

We are still happy to talk with you about your own extraction plans – whether that is from North Africa or the USA. We offer free consultation sessions with any trans person who feels their country or surroundings are unsafe or likely to become unsafe. For example, if you are in a gulf state but have funds, and just need expertise how to arrange to flee or help like an outside helper to file paperwork, contact us.

We continue to offer our “consult” sessions to help plan how to get out of the UK, USA, or other countries of new concern. If you would like one of these, email consult@transrescue.org with your time zone and a suggested time. Bear in mind we are in the Netherlands (we got outta the USA early).

If you are in a dangerous situation where you have a very limited time to get out, or see an opportunity to flee and need help NOW, email annie+intake@transrescue.org

This post will be removed when we re-open intake.

Review Of the Year: 2023

It’s been a hectic but transformative year for Trans Rescue with a lot of stress and plenty of ups and downs, but we’ve come through it and we’re delighted to be able to say that with your help we’ve been able to help over 140 people to safety so far in 2023.

In this review we’re bringing you the work we’ve done this year, something on the passengers we have in transit, some good news about passengers who’ve made it to safety, and news of our upcoming campaigns. Keep reading, and find out what we’ve been up to.

America

The USA flag with a calendar page showing the 5th of November 2024, and a banner at the top saying "US Presidential Election".
It’s less than a year now to the US Presidential election. Flag image: Mrrebel1453, CC BY-SA 4.0.

The original impetus behind the formation of our predecessor organisation TransEmigrate was to provide support for American trans people in escaping the increasing number of anti-trans laws in the USA creating a hostile environment in which to be trans. With just over a year until the next US Presidential election we have returned to this topic, launching a campaign to equip American trans people with the support and knowledge they need to reach safety.

With an estimated 1.6 million transgender Americans their numbers are too large for us to help each of them individually. However, because an American passport remains one of the strongest in the world trans American’s needs are very different from the people in developing countries who have occupied much of our attention until now.

Our campaign has started by persuading American trans people to apply for a passport, and will continue by helping them explore the escape options available in the likely event of a far-right government. Without this work we think escape will only be a realistic option for the wealthy, so our aim is to lower the hurdles to the point at which it becomes practical for many more. There are a huge number of American trans people who we think can get themselves out if they have the right information and encouragement, these are the target audience we are trying to reach.

East Africa

Daily Monitor headline: "We shall not accept gays, says Kaziimba"
The deteriorating situation Uganda, summarised in a headline.

By far our biggest operation this year started in the spring, when we found ourselves the only outside LGBT organization with access to a network on the ground in Uganda as the government there enacted a series of measures criminalizing LGBT people.

We had an extensive presence in Kenya already, and had helped a few trans people in late 2022 in Uganda. So we were, awkwardly, one of the few global organizations with an existing program in Uganda. This placed us in the position of taking what would turn out to be a prominent position in the movement to help Ugandan LGBT people flee. We were rather a small organization to be doing this.

We obtained a generous 40K Euro grant from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs to expand our existing trans haven, Eden house, in Nakuru, Kenya. Sadly, the shelter was raided in August by Kenyan police due to the presence of LGBT people. We divided the residents of Eden House into smaller groups and set up safe houses in other cities.

Annie, our director, took a group of Egyptians who were in the house to Tanzania, while Arya, our shelter manager, took a group of Kenyans to the coast. We established a new, smaller shelter for some of the Ugandans, while others moved in with friends. We have ongoing costs to support those passengers who remain in Kenya.

Having now become the target of the Kenyan police, in the end we had to get most of our staff out of Kenya. Arya had to flee Kenya herself. She’s currently in a third country and we’re attempting to relocate her to a permanent place .

Passengers In Transit

We currently have passengers in transit across several regions of the world, in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and the Americas. In some cases our role is an advisory one for passengers who are self-funding, we are helping others directly with their extraction, and a few more are being supported by us in mid-journey.

Coming Up

"Why we are sounding the alarm for transgender Americans" superimposed over the "See no evil... " three monkeys.
Our America campaign will include a series of videos on our YouTube channel alongside more grass-roots activities. Monkeys: John Snape, CC BY-SA 3.0.

As we move towards 2024 we’ll be continuing to work on our America campaign, something which is likely to intensify with the progress of their election.

This new project will involve extensive writing, video production and post production work. If any of you have an interest in helping with the campaign in that way, please drop us a note.

Meanwhile we have our existing in-transit passengers to continue on their way, our growing cadre of former passengers to support in various ways, and our continuing work helping new passengers.

A few weeks ago we had the pleasure of an impromptu meeting of five former passengers. In the group most of the former passengers were bright young adults with an impressive array of credentials who will be contributors to the communities in which they now find themselves. This work can be emotionally hard, dangerous, and exhausting, but moments like these keep us going.

We could not do this work without our donors and supporters. We thank you, and we hope that this has given you some ideas of what we have been doing over the last year.

Happy holidays and a happy and safe new year for all of you,

The volunteers of Trans Rescue

Maeen al-Dahbali – Now It Can Be Told

Maeen is a Yemeni cis man who became an anti-child-soldier activist during the earlier years of the Yemeni civil war, subsequently becoming the civil servant with responsibility for child services in the city of Taiz. This made him the enemy of all the warring factions due to his opposition to child recruitment, and he was subsequently imprisoned and tortured. His friends secured his release, and in the year before Trans Rescue was founded Anne helped him escape his hiding place for Egypt, with her own money. This year we were able to help him obtain humanitarian asylum in France, he is now in the French asylum system, and learning French.

Why are we, an organization dedicated to helping transgender people, helping a straight cis man?  When we formed Trans Rescue we asked ourselves what to do with Maeen. We decided trans people were better than that, we weren’t abandoning someone who was in danger because he helped children. What we couldn’t reveal then was that he also performed a vital role for us as our Arabic-speaking man on the ground who helped us considerably with our work. We can not thank him enough for this service and we are thus very pleased to have been able to help him reach safety.

We delayed this report for a while to make sure of his safety.  We last described Maeen when he was still in Egypt.

What They Don’t Want You To Know About How The Asylum System Works

There are some subjects that everyone knows a lot about, but the “knowledge” they have is instead received opinion which bears only a passing resemblance to the truth. As a non-profit which deals with refugees we’re right in the thick of just such a subject, because everybody has a lot of received opinions about asylum seekers. If we had ten dollars for every hot take we’ve heard on the subject we’d probably be better funded, but as it is we’re still operating on a shoestring. So perhaps it’s time to look at the subject from our perspective. We’re not asylum seekers but we deal on a daily basis with the system on a global scale, and we know something about how it works from a first-hand perspective.

First, A Little History

A black and white image of the MS St. Louis, in harbour surrounded by smaller boats.
The MS St. Louis was a ship which transported a complement of Jewish refugees across the Atlantic in 1939, only to be turned back by Cuba and the USA. Many of those onboard died in the holocaust.Public Domain.

So, just why can people claim asylum? The answer to that in today’s form goes back to the years after World War II, when the inconvenient truth for many countries was that before the war they’d turned away people who later became victims of the Nazis. That and the legal status of huge numbers of refugees from the war all across Europe and elsewhere led to the UN adopting the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees in 1951, which defines a refugee and sets out a list of provisions to ensure their protection. The important point to take away from the 1951 convention is that a refugee has the right to claim asylum in a country if they are standing on that country’s soil. This protection was put in place to stop states merely pushing refugees back over their borders, instead they have to process their asylum applications. This forms the basis of the asylum system, however there are other treaties such as the Dublin Regulation which limit so-called asylum shopping around European countries, that modify the framework under which it operates.

A rectangular grey accommodation block ship moored at a pier, viewed from a cliff top.
The Bibby Stockholm is an accommodation barge hired by the British government and moored at Portland to house asylum seekers. Ashley Smith, CC BY-SA 4.0.

A country then has to process the applications of the asylum seekers who arrive, and to do that they stick those people in camps or hostels or asylum seeker centres while they do it. The purpose of processing the application is to determine whether or not the person is a danger, and whether or not they are a genuine refugee, as of course a percentage applying for asylum are under no threat and are just seeking a better life. The problem with all this though is that the process takes a while. It’s not unusual in European countries for someone to spend years in the system without a decision, and thus you’ll find those asylum seeker centres overflowing with people. As an example according to the Refugee Council in the last year the UK has had a shade under 80000 applications, and holds a little over 175000 people awaiting a decision in an array of camps, contracted hotels, and even ships. This in turn becomes something for politicians to make their capital from, and here begins the problem with the way countries deal with asylum seekers.

Why Asylum Seekers Are Great For Politicians

Rishi Sunak at a podium against a dark blue background. On the podium is the message "STOP THE BOATS".
The UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak puts anti-asylum-seeker rhetoric front and centre in his campaigning. UK Prime Minister, CC BY 2.0.

Having tens or hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers in camps is a great tool for politicians, because they can use the prospect of lots of foreigners to scare pearl-clutching middle-class voters and secure their votes. This is universal, whether politicians are left or right, in government or in opposition, they all wave the asylum seeker stick when it suits them. This creates a sense of threat from asylum seekers  in the population that’s way out of proportion to their real numbers, but perhaps more importantly for the asylum seekers themselves it gives the politicians few incentives to do anything about the problem. Put simply, there are votes in having a bunch of asylum seekers to scare people with, but no votes in spending money to deal with them.

All those hot takes build up then, about how the flood of people is unsustainable and the asylum seekers are being given five star accommodation at the expense of hard working people, or that they’re all economic migrants anyway and none of them are real refugees.. It’s compounded by an intentionally-curated lack of understanding of the 1951 convention or the Dublin Regulation, and the inevitable result is a more authoritarian and rightward political shift. It’s not as though something can’t be done about the problem, but it suits the politicians for it to remain.

So. What’s The Fix?

If there’s a fix for the asylum problem then, what is it? Certainly not abandoning parts of the 1951 convention as the British Conservatives are toying with doing, as tinkering with basic human rights law affects everyone, not just the people you don’t like. Instead there are two fairly straightforward policies which can deal with it. The first is to pour money into asylum processing such that it becomes much faster and that economic migrants can be more readily identified, and the second is to invest in overseas aid with the aim of improving the prospects of people who might otherwise try the asylum system as economic migrants. Sadly neither of these can be used to scare voters, so the chances of either of them happening are slim.

We hope then that this piece has given you something to think about. If you hear one of those uninformed hot takes or perhaps you might have been tempted to give one, maybe now you know who really wants you to hold those views. You probably don’t consider yourself a supporter of the far right and neither do your friends, so if you hear anyone tempted by this gateway drug it’s worth knowing something about what lies behind it.

Why We Are Sounding The Alarm For Transgender Americans.

A pair of stolpersteine set in cobblestones, with flowers, a photo of the two Holocaust victims they memorialise, and a folded Belgian flag.
Stolpersteine in Brussels for Berek and Pesah Swiatlowski. Bella Swiatlowski, Public domain.

As a Brit who travels to and from mainland Europe on a regular basis, there’s something of a sobering reminder to be found beneath your feet as you walk around European towns and cities. Every now and then you’ll see a small brass plaque in the pavement, with a name, some dates, and sometimes a place name on it. These are the so-called stolpersteine, or stumbling stones, memorials for the victims of the Holocaust in front of their former homes, and each one bears the name of a Jew or other victim.

Brits and Americans are taught about the Holocaust, in schools, through the testimonies of survivors, and through television and film. Many of us had grandparents who fought or otherwise served in the second world war, and among those were a significant number who saw its effects for themselves. But it didn’t happen at home in the UK or America, so for those of us born long after it happened it still remains difficult to comprehend.

A stolperstein catching the evening sun, in a view down a street.
It happened on this quiet street in a prosperous town. Christian Michelides, CC BY-SA 4.0

In considering the people whose names appear on those stumbling stones, the horror of it all becomes far more immediate than it does when watching a historical documentary. It happened here on this quiet street in a prosperous town, this is not the place of horror far to the east which we’ve been taught to associate with the Holocaust. By the time the Nazis rounded up their victims it was far too late for anybody in Germany or the occupied countries to protest, and of those courageous people who did take action to save Jews from capture, many were themselves caught and sent to their deaths.

The question that’s probably in the minds of most people when struggling to comprehend the Holocaust is this: How could it have happened? The answer doesn’t come in the final act of the victims being rounded up and exterminated, but years earlier. In the relentless Nazi propaganda which polarised an entire population to see Jews as subhuman, but also in the refusal of so many people to understand what was happening. The message from the numbers of Jewish refugees sounding the alarm bells throughout the 1930s was largely ignored, because people preferred instead to believe that it couldn’t be that bad. You are left wondering, how many of the victims of the Holocaust could have been saved, had the countries outside Germany done more about the plight of German Jews in the 1930s?

A selection of anti-trans headlines from American media in early 2023.
The demonisation of transgender people in right-wing American media has been ceaseless.

Given the above it’s not difficult to draw parallels between Germany in the 1930s and the actions of the right wing of US politics here in the 2020s. The demonisation of transgender people in right-wing American media has been ceaseless, and the legislative programme of Republican state lawmakers has demonstrated their resolve to wipe us out in their territories. They are chillingly open about their plans for us under a future Republican presidency, in which near-dictatorial powers would be seized at a federal level to override lawmakers in Democratic so-called safe states. Meanwhile, as in the 1930s, those not directly involved either within America or in other countries choose to ignore the plight of American transgender people, either because they don’t believe it will happen that way, or because they simply don’t care.

So this is why we’re sounding the alarm for trans Americans. There is no magic time machine with which we can go back to 1931 and warn about the Holocaust, but there is still time for transgender Americans to get out. When this is all over, we would prefer not to carry the guilt of having stood idly by while it was happening.

Header image: John Snape, CC BY-SA 3.0.