According to a statement provided via email, Rainbow Railroad provided support to over 500 LGBTQ+ people in 2020, including the emergency relocation of 75 individuals. Other than relocation, that support also included in-country support programs, increased partnerships with local activists and advocacy organizations, and “responding to crackdowns” on LGBTQ+ people in countries like Russia, Egypt, and Tanzania.
But advocacy organizations aren’t equipped with the infrastructure to assist mass numbers of refugees. While the Trump White House may have intentionally made it more difficult to process these claims, advocates say that it is the Biden administration’s responsibility to reverse course.
In addition to immediately reversing the decision on the cap, Powell added that the Biden administration should work with refugee advocacy organizations “to identify LGBTQI refugees in need of resettlement, protect LGBTQI asylum seekers from abuse in detention (which also means rolling back inhumane detention practices) and work with LGBTQI organizations to ensure refugees have access to adequate services once they arrive in the United States.”
Others, like Aaron Morris, executive director of LGBTQ+ immigrant rights organization Immigrant Equality, want to push the White House even further.
“The United States should be a beacon of hope for LGBTQ refugees across the globe,” Morris said via email. “We should be accepting more refugees than any other nation, and not just offering the barest minimum protection to only a handful of people.”
Considering that the U.N. Refugee Agency estimates that 79.5 million people worldwide were forcibly displaced at the end of 2019, 15,000 people could, indeed, be considered “only a handful.” The numbers grow even more grim when broken down by specific regions, as did a Friday executive order from Biden himself. Africa, the world’s second largest continent, is allowed 7,000 refugees; on the lowest end of the spectrum, East Asia is allowed only 1,000.
Jorge Gutierrez, executive director of LGBTQ+ Latinx advocacy organization Familia: Trans Queer Liberation Movement, said that Biden’s decision was “unacceptable,” highlighting the unique struggles of LGBTQ+ refugees.
“President Biden was elected to reverse Trump’s anti-refugee policies, not make them worse,” said Gutierrez in a statement via email. “The Biden Administration made a commitment earlier this year to protect LGBTQ+ people worldwide — this must include allowing LGBTQ+ refugees into the country, not putting a limitation on how refugees the U.S. accepts.”
Shortly after taking office, Biden signed three executive orders affirming LGBTQ+ equality. On his first day as president, he signed an order directing White House agencies to apply the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling on LGBTQ+ workplace discrimination to all forms of federal policy. Shortly after overturning Trump’s trans military ban, he issued a memo committing to advancing queer and trans rights in all foreign policy decisions.
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