In July, a judge halted the deportation of Angel Jenkel, criticizing Ottawa’s Immigration Department for not properly considering the situation of LGBTQ Americans since Donald Trump's return to the White House.Geoff Robins/The Globe and Mail
The number of U.S. citizens applying for asylum in Canada has skyrocketed since Donald Trump returned to office, with more claims in the first half of 2025 than the whole of last year.
The Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB), which hears asylum claims, has published data showing that 245 U.S. citizens sought refugee status in the first half of this year, compared with 204 Americans filing asylum claims in all of 2024. There were 157 refugee claims from U.S. citizens referred to the IRB in 2023.
The number of U.S. citizens seeking refugee status has historically been far lower than from other countries. There were more than 55,000 refugee claims filed between January and June, with those from India accounting for almost 10,000.
Some of the U.S. claims this year are from non-binary and trans Americans who have seen their rights eroded since Mr. Trump took office in January. The President has signed an executive order declaring that the U.S. government only recognizes male and female sex, meaning that passports and other identity documents can no longer carry an X gender marker.
He has also ordered the dismantling of government-funded equity and diversity departments and signed an executive order banning trans women from participating in women’s sports.
Hannah Kreager, a transgender woman from Arizona, in June filed an asylum claim with the IRB on the grounds that she has a well-founded fear of persecution in the U.S.
Her immigration lawyer, Yameena Ansari, said that Mr. Trump’s return “has created a climate of fear in the U.S. that pushes vulnerable populations – women, minorities, LGBTQ+ folks – to look north for safe haven.”
“We’re hearing from Americans who never imagined they’d make a refugee claim. It shows how dramatically the human-rights landscape in the U.S. has turned,” she said in an e-mail.
The figures show the number of claims referred to the IRB that were assessed as worthy of consideration by the Canada Borders Services Agency or by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. There are long backlogs at the IRB and it can take up to four years before a hearing.
In July, a Federal Court justice halted the deportation of a non-binary American in a ruling that criticized Ottawa’s Immigration Department for not properly considering the situation of LGBTQ Americans since Mr. Trump’s return.
Angel Jenkel, a 24-year-old multimedia artist from Minnesota who is engaged to a Canadian, can now remain in Canada while their case is judicially reviewed, in a judgment that their lawyer, Adrienne Smith, hailed as precedent-setting.
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Ms. Smith of Smith Immigration Law said “our office has been regularly contacted by trans and non-binary U.S. citizens who no longer feel safe in the United States, and are looking into the option of making a refugee claim in Canada.”
“We have also been contacted by several parents of trans children who are looking at their immigration options given concerns about their children’s well-being if they continue to live in the United States.”
James Yousif, a Toronto-based lawyer who was director of policy to former Conservative immigration minister Jason Kenney, cautioned that asylum claims have to meet strict criteria to succeed.
For American citizens making asylum claims in Canada, “refugee protection is not available if the claimant has a viable internal flight alternative,” he said.
“For their claim to succeed, an American citizen would have to show that there is no part of the United States where they could reasonably expect to live in safety. That is a very high bar.”