When Abraham Lincoln stood at Gettysburg in 1863, amidst the throes of the Civil War and eighty-seven years into the country’s making, he described a nation “conceived in liberty,” and called for, in that moment of crisis, a “new birth of freedom.” The promise that freedom is not a privilege but a right is the story America has told about itself for 250 years. But today, that promise is broken.
For the second year in a row, the US has topped the list of countries where LGBTQI+ people are requesting help. More than 6,000 individuals (mostly US citizens) reached out to Rainbow Railroad in 2025, with the majority seeking international relocation support.
Their fears are well-founded. Anti-LGBTQI+ laws have been introduced across state legislatures at record-high rates since 2022, with transgender people being disproportionately targeted in these political attacks. As of January 2025, that anti-trans backlash has expanded at the federal level via executive orders targeting trans people’s access to healthcare, legal recognition, and public life. Our data reflects the human impact of these policies: trans women are now the largest demographic contacting Rainbow Railroad for support.
For two decades, our organization has prioritized supporting people living in one of the over 60 countries that criminalize same-sex intimacy in law or in practice. Where possible, we supported these individuals to relocate to nations that uphold the human rights of all people, including the United States.
However, America’s reputation as a nation committed to protecting human rights is in grave danger. Our data shows that LGBTQI+ people in the US are deeply concerned about their safety and want to relocate abroad, though most of these requests were driven by a fear of future persecution – a divergence from requests received from other regions, where individuals tend to seek assistance after experiencing violence. Their ability to claim refugee status remains limited by the 1951 Refugee Convention and 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees – which mandate asylum seekers to prove that they cannot live safely in any part of their home country.
We see the real fear and uncertainty LGBTQI+ people across the US are living through. While a number of states and cities offer protections for LGBTQI+ people, different LGBTQI+ individuals' experiences of safety are affected by their unique intersecting identities. It is important to understand that there are vast inequalities in access to safety even within a single country. LGBTQI+ people requesting help continue to cite community and family-based rejection, housing instability, and mental health concerns as top concerns for their safety, health, and welfare.
We also acknowledge that this moment did not begin – and will not end – with this administration. The United States first appeared among the top 10 countries where LGBTQI+ individuals were sending requests for help four years ago. At that time, the bulk of those requests came from noncitizens. Notably, a significant number of these requests were received in the days following the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade, suggesting that the withdrawal of the federal right to abortion provoked broader fears about threats to human rights.
For those outside the US looking to it for safety, the door has been closing. Today, the country’s historic role as the world’s leading resettlement nation is collapsing. Under the previous administration, the US brought more than 100,000 refugees into the country each year. Now, that number hovers around 7,500.
Forcibly displaced trans and queer people remain disproportionately impacted by the administration’s sweeping restrictions on immigration. Last year alone, the US narrowed existing legal immigration pathways and slashed funding to programs supporting asylum seekers, all while moving to launch the largest deportation campaign in US history. In just the last month, the Supreme Court delivered a decision that clears the way for the administration to revive a harmful policy of turning away asylum seekers at the US-Mexico border before they can access the asylum process. For many LGBTQI+ refugees and asylum seekers, their identity alone was grounds for imprisonment or death in their home country. Being turned away at the border or sent to third countries where they face violence and persecution does not offer safety – it compounds the danger they were already running from.
These policies are a manifestation of a political tactic that asks us to see each other not as people united in a shared struggle for freedom, but as adversaries competing for it. We reject that vision of the United States. We reject the premise that this country belongs to some and not others. This country has been continually strengthened by generations of immigrants whose contributions, in culture, labor, and community, have shaped this nation’s identity. No version of America exists without them. From Italy to Venezuela, we know that there is a home for people from all corners of the globe here.
On the 250th anniversary of the nation, we call for Lincoln’s renewal once more. We remember that progress does not come without pushback. Twenty-two years ago, Massachusetts became the first state in the US to enact marriage equality. It took eleven more to accomplish that nationwide.
Freedom, in this country, has never been distributed equally, and it has never arrived without a fight. The question this 250th anniversary raises is not whether America has lived up to its founding promise – but for whom that promise has been kept, and for whom it remains unfinished. LGBTQI+ people navigating forced displacement are part of that answer.
This year, we call on the United States to remember its roots, and return to its core principles of liberty and equality for all.