A national of the United States of America (USA) requested international protection in the Netherlands on 10 June 2025 claiming she no longer felt safe in her country of origin because of the problems she experienced as a trans woman. By decision of 16 June 2025, the Minister for Asylum and Migration rejected her asylum application as manifestly unfounded, stating that the USA was considered a safe country of origin. The applicant then appealed this decision before the District Court of the Hague seated in Amsterdam and a request for interim relief was granted. The applicant reiterated that she had been harassed, intimidated and discriminated against in the USA and argued that President Trump's administration was implementing anti-transgender laws, which made her feel restricted and oppressed in her right to exist. Upon returning to the US, she feared that she would be prosecuted for identity fraud and that she would have to go to the men's section of the prison, because a different gender is mentioned on her passport than on her identity card. The minister stated that the applicant’s problems were not serious enough to grant her international protection, and there was no reason to assume that LGBTIQ persons from the USA have a well-founded fear of persecution or are at risk of treatment in violation of Article 3 of the ECHR. 

Although the minister had sufficiently substantiated that the applicant was not eligible for international protection, the District Court of The Hague considered that the ground on which her asylum application had been rejected as manifestly unfounded had lapsed. In this regard, the court noted that, in a letter to the House of Representatives dated 23 September 2025, the minister had announced the suspension of the national list of safe countries of origin, including the US. The court therefore declared the appeal well founded and instructed the minister to adopt a new decision on the applicant’s request for international protection.

The court considered that the minister examined the applicant’s asylum procedure in the so called ‘track 2’, which is an accelerated procedure applied, among others, if the foreign national comes from a safe country of origin. Since the minister suspended the application of the national list of safe countries of origin, the court stated that the minister wrongly examined the applicant's application in ‘track 2’. It further emphasised that the accelerated procedure had fewer procedural guarantees compared to the regular asylum procedure.

The court then recognised that the minister conducted adequate research into the situation of trans people in the USA, it had addressed it with sufficient reasoning, and the applicant had sufficient opportunity to respond. In light of the minister’s findings, the court stated that recent legislation and presidential decrees had restricted LGBTIQ rights in the US. It highlighted that the laws issued prohibited discussions about sexual orientation and gender identity in schools, prohibited trans people from using toilets in public spaces that are in line with their gender identity and restricted access of trans people to sports facilities and gender-affirming care. It further noted that 937 anti-LGBTIQ laws were submitted of which 122 were passed. Moreover, it considered that President Trump issued a presidential decree stating that the federal government would only recognise two non-changeable genders (male and female), and trans people could no longer apply for new identity documents that match their gender identity. The court also noted an increase in the number of violent incidents and threats against trans people.

However, the court concluded that the situation in the USA for trans people was not such that they were systematically exposed to persecution or run the risk of treatment in violation of Article 3 of the ECHR as a group. In these circumstances, it emphasised that it was up to the applicant to make it plausible that in her individual case she did have a well-founded fear of persecution or run a real risk of being treated in violation of Article 3 of the ECHR. The court stated that the fact that the applicant was called names and feared passing through customs at the airport and/or visiting a public toilet did not reach the threshold of persecution. The court noted that the applicant had a job and income in the USA, was able to (almost) complete the transition to womanhood, was able to take out health insurance and generally had access to health care. If further considered that the applicant had not made it plausible that she would be persecuted for identity fraud and will be placed in a (men's) prison. It emphasised that, the fact that her current passport stated a different gender than her identity card was insufficient to determine that she would be imprisoned. The court also considered the applicant’s fear of ICE, based on her claim that transgender individuals, particularly those from immigrant backgrounds such herself, are at risk of arbitrary arrest. The court noted that the applicant had American nationality and she was not in the same position of undocumented migrants.

Therefore, it found that she had not sufficiently substantiated that she ran a real risk of being arrested by ICE. Considering the individual situation of the applicant and the general situation for trans people in the US, the court found that she was not at risk of persecution or a real risk of ill treatment.