A California woman who abandoned the United States over fears tied to President Donald Trump’s second term now says the European refugee camp she fled to has become more dangerous than the country she left behind.
Jane-Michelle Arc, a 48-year-old former San Francisco software engineer, is transgender and sought asylum in the Netherlands after concluding she could no longer safely live in America.
She now resides at Ter Apel, a sprawling asylum facility housing roughly 2,000 migrants from nations including Syria, Somalia and Eritrea.
Violence at the camp has escalated so severely that Red Cross workers halted their aid operations there entirely, citing repeated stabbings and mass brawls breaking out just beyond the facility’s gates.
Arc told local outlet Pow News that her calculation about danger has flipped since arriving. “The situation I have in the US as a trans person, not good right, but here, I will be hurt or killed,” she said.
Dutch authorities responded by sharply limiting who may enter the camp.
Since May 20, the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers has restricted access to women, children and other vulnerable applicants, leaving remaining asylum seekers to wait outdoors until space clears.
The Red Cross placed blame for the unrest on outsiders rather than camp residents themselves, describing the violence as driven by “a small group of men who are generally not among the people seeking assistance.”
Arc painted a bleak picture of daily life near the facility, saying even routine errands carry risk. “It is too dangerous to walk to the grocery store because of the people that live in the camp, and I’m one of them, I live here,” she said.
She also described a visual marker of the danger staff now face. “You see these guys in yellow vests, they actually wear them because there are so many stabbings,” Arc said.
Dutch Asylum and Migration Minister Van den Brink has since designated the surrounding area a formal safety risk zone, a move that empowers law enforcement to carry out preventive searches, according to NL Times.
Planned fixes include a new day shelter, expanded camera coverage, four additional guards and two special enforcement officers.
Arc’s path to the Netherlands began after Trump’s re-election, when she said she feared losing workplace, housing and healthcare protections tied to her gender transition, which she completed in 2012 with legal documentation updated in 2013. A passport renewal that would have required listing her sex as male pushed her toward leaving the country altogether.
In an earlier interview with the Guardian, Arc admitted the decision was reckless even by her own judgment.
“I did it because I was afraid for my life. I didn’t do this in secret. I talked to everybody I knew. I said: ‘I am planning to do this wildly stupid thing,’” she said, adding that friends told her: “I don’t love this for you, but there is no other option.”
Now Arc wants to reverse course entirely. Writing on Substack, she indicated her time abroad has only reinforced her ties to home rather than replaced them.
A friend, Jana Lynne Sanchez, has started a fundraiser to help Arc afford a replacement passport and travel costs to the U.S. consulate in Amsterdam.
Sanchez wrote on Facebook that Arc’s partner in the U.S. has since been diagnosed with cancer, with a good prognosis following surgery, adding urgency to her desire to return.
Conditions during Arc’s initial days in the Dutch immigration system were harsh by her own account.
She described being housed in a cramped room she believed had bodily fluid stains on the walls before later being transferred to shared housing set aside for LGBT residents, which she credited with providing some sense of community.
Dutch officials do not track how many transgender Americans have filed asylum claims, though Arc estimated the number at 35 to 50.
Leiden University immigration scholar Marlou Schrover told reporters that American applicants face long odds, noting that a successful claim would likely require proof the U.S. government was imprisoning people specifically over their gender identity.
Roughly 20 failed American applicants were deported from the Netherlands back to the U.S. in 2025, according to the Dutch asylum ministry.
The asylum surge coincides with a broader legal shift in the United States. The Supreme Court ruled June 30 to uphold state laws barring transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s school sports.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh, writing for the majority, said Title IX supports “separate sports teams for biological males and biological females,” adding that the policy “can reduce the risk of physical injury and ensure fair competition.”
Trump praised the decision on Truth Social, writing: “BIG WIN: The United States Supreme Court just RULED AGAINST MEN PLAYING IN WOMEN’S SPORTS. Wow! That takes that ridiculous situation off the table!!!”
