Blab Politics
Evangelical-Backed Anti-LGBTI+ Laws Expand from Africa to U.S. States, While Immigration Rules Tighten Refugee Access
For nearly two decades, a coalition of evangelical Christian groups has poured tens of millions of dollars into a coordinated campaign that has turned a handful of laws into a continent‑wide wave of anti‑LGBTI+ legislation. The same network now bankrolls similar bills in U.S. statehouses, while new federal immigration rules make it harder for those fleeing persecution to find safety.
In Africa, the tide has sharpened. At least 33 countries now criminalize homosexuality, with West Africa experiencing the fastest rise. Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger have introduced the first‑ever criminal codes, and Senegal and Ghana have added clauses that punish the “promotion” of LGBTI+ identities. Southern Africa remains the only region where a majority of states—Namibia, Botswana, and South Africa—have not criminalized same‑sex activity. South Africa’s constitution bars discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, and a 2024 hate‑crimes law added formal protections for gender identity.
Uganda’s 2023 “Anti‑Homosexuality Act” set a template that other nations have followed. According to the source, several U.S. evangelical groups spent years lobbying the Ugandan Parliament, framing LGBTI+ identity as a foreign threat to “family values.” The act carries life imprisonment for same‑sex activity, the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality,” and up to twenty years for supporting LGBTI+ people or organizations.
Kenya’s pending “Family Protection Bill” mirrors the Ugandan language, including a death‑penalty clause and a ten‑year minimum for promoting LGBTI+ rights. Ghana’s “Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill” bans advocacy and requires citizens to report LGBTI+ activity, encouraging community surveillance. In Senegal, a law doubles the prison term for same‑sex relations and criminalizes LGBTI+ advocacy and “transsexuality,” extending punishment to gender expression.
The same evangelical network that financed Uganda’s law is active elsewhere, spreading hate rhetoric beyond borders. The source describes this as a coordinated campaign rather than isolated national stories.
In the United States, state legislatures introduced more than 600 anti‑LGBTI+ bills in 2025, up from roughly 500 in 2024. Seventy laws are now in effect, and 29 states have adopted at least one of four common restrictions—limits on gender‑affirming care, bans on transgender athletes, bathroom rules, or prohibitions on using a person’s chosen name or pronouns.
A new wave of “sex‑definition” statutes pushes further. Kansas’s S.B. 244, for example, invalidates and reissues any driver’s license or birth certificate that does not match a person’s sex at birth, mandates sex‑segregated public bathrooms, and embeds a single biological definition of sex into every Kansas statute. At least thirteen states have passed similar legislation, most modeled on language from a single conservative advocacy group.
For Black LGBTI+ migrants, persecution does not end at the border; it simply morphs into a new form in the states they now call home.
U.S. immigration law compounds that threat. A federal Travel Ban suspends entry for nationals of certain countries, and of the 39 officially “banned” countries, 26 (66 %) are African, despite Africa holding only 28 % of the world’s nations. Haiti and Dominica, both majority‑Black nations, are also on the list. Black immigrants, primarily from Africa and the Caribbean, are only 11.2 % of all U.S. immigrants, yet they bear the brunt of the travel bans.
Other laws further close routes into the U.S. In June 2026, the Supreme Court reinstated “metering,” a policy permitting border officials to block and turn away migrants at the border, even if they request asylum. The discretion is not applied evenly; Black migrants face documented, disproportionate mistreatment in immigration enforcement.
In October 2025, the administration set the FY2026 refugee cap at 7,500—the lowest in the program’s 45‑year history and a fraction of the 92,000‑person average, with admissions primarily reserved for white Afrikaners. In May 2026, it added another 10,000 slots reserved entirely for Afrikaners. Only three refugees admitted all year have come from any other country.
These barriers do not end once someone is inside the U.S. Under Asylum Cooperative Agreements (ACAs)—bilateral deals permitting the U.S. to deport asylum‑seekers to third‑countries with no hearing—the administration has sent roughly 22,000 people to at least 26 countries and dismissed nearly 30,700 asylum applications without ever hearing their claim. Many ACA countries criminalize homosexuality outright; others are marked by documented anti‑Black violence and discrimination; some carry both risks.
States have also begun regulating immigration themselves, despite it being a domain the Constitution reserves for the federal government. Texas’s S.B. 4, effective since May 2026, lets local police arrest and prosecute anyone suspected of entering the U.S. illegally and lets state judges order their removal, all without federal involvement. At least five states—Georgia, Iowa, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Tennessee—have passed close copies of this law. These laws cluster in the South, the same region already carrying the country’s strongest anti‑LGBTI+ laws and its largest Black immigrant population.
At nearly every stage of the immigration process, the paperwork required to establish who a person is and why they need refuge becomes the paperwork most likely to expose them if it is ultimately denied. The current situation leaves Black LGBTI+ migrants trapped in a closed circuit of violence and oppression that spans from African homophobia to U.S. state laws and federal immigration restrictions.
The next steps for affected migrants remain uncertain. The U.S. administration’s refugee cap and ACA policies are subject to congressional review, while state laws such as Texas’s S.B. 4 face legal challenges. In Africa, several anti‑LGBTI+ bills are still pending in parliament, and international pressure may influence future legislative outcomes.
In Africa, the tide has sharpened. At least 33 countries now criminalize homosexuality, with West Africa experiencing the fastest rise. Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger have introduced the first‑ever criminal codes, and Senegal and Ghana have added clauses that punish the “promotion” of LGBTI+ identities. Southern Africa remains the only region where a majority of states—Namibia, Botswana, and South Africa—have not criminalized same‑sex activity. South Africa’s constitution bars discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, and a 2024 hate‑crimes law added formal protections for gender identity.
Uganda’s 2023 “Anti‑Homosexuality Act” set a template that other nations have followed. According to the source, several U.S. evangelical groups spent years lobbying the Ugandan Parliament, framing LGBTI+ identity as a foreign threat to “family values.” The act carries life imprisonment for same‑sex activity, the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality,” and up to twenty years for supporting LGBTI+ people or organizations.
Kenya’s pending “Family Protection Bill” mirrors the Ugandan language, including a death‑penalty clause and a ten‑year minimum for promoting LGBTI+ rights. Ghana’s “Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill” bans advocacy and requires citizens to report LGBTI+ activity, encouraging community surveillance. In Senegal, a law doubles the prison term for same‑sex relations and criminalizes LGBTI+ advocacy and “transsexuality,” extending punishment to gender expression.
The same evangelical network that financed Uganda’s law is active elsewhere, spreading hate rhetoric beyond borders. The source describes this as a coordinated campaign rather than isolated national stories.
In the United States, state legislatures introduced more than 600 anti‑LGBTI+ bills in 2025, up from roughly 500 in 2024. Seventy laws are now in effect, and 29 states have adopted at least one of four common restrictions—limits on gender‑affirming care, bans on transgender athletes, bathroom rules, or prohibitions on using a person’s chosen name or pronouns.
A new wave of “sex‑definition” statutes pushes further. Kansas’s S.B. 244, for example, invalidates and reissues any driver’s license or birth certificate that does not match a person’s sex at birth, mandates sex‑segregated public bathrooms, and embeds a single biological definition of sex into every Kansas statute. At least thirteen states have passed similar legislation, most modeled on language from a single conservative advocacy group.
For Black LGBTI+ migrants, persecution does not end at the border; it simply morphs into a new form in the states they now call home.
U.S. immigration law compounds that threat. A federal Travel Ban suspends entry for nationals of certain countries, and of the 39 officially “banned” countries, 26 (66 %) are African, despite Africa holding only 28 % of the world’s nations. Haiti and Dominica, both majority‑Black nations, are also on the list. Black immigrants, primarily from Africa and the Caribbean, are only 11.2 % of all U.S. immigrants, yet they bear the brunt of the travel bans.
Other laws further close routes into the U.S. In June 2026, the Supreme Court reinstated “metering,” a policy permitting border officials to block and turn away migrants at the border, even if they request asylum. The discretion is not applied evenly; Black migrants face documented, disproportionate mistreatment in immigration enforcement.
In October 2025, the administration set the FY2026 refugee cap at 7,500—the lowest in the program’s 45‑year history and a fraction of the 92,000‑person average, with admissions primarily reserved for white Afrikaners. In May 2026, it added another 10,000 slots reserved entirely for Afrikaners. Only three refugees admitted all year have come from any other country.
These barriers do not end once someone is inside the U.S. Under Asylum Cooperative Agreements (ACAs)—bilateral deals permitting the U.S. to deport asylum‑seekers to third‑countries with no hearing—the administration has sent roughly 22,000 people to at least 26 countries and dismissed nearly 30,700 asylum applications without ever hearing their claim. Many ACA countries criminalize homosexuality outright; others are marked by documented anti‑Black violence and discrimination; some carry both risks.
States have also begun regulating immigration themselves, despite it being a domain the Constitution reserves for the federal government. Texas’s S.B. 4, effective since May 2026, lets local police arrest and prosecute anyone suspected of entering the U.S. illegally and lets state judges order their removal, all without federal involvement. At least five states—Georgia, Iowa, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Tennessee—have passed close copies of this law. These laws cluster in the South, the same region already carrying the country’s strongest anti‑LGBTI+ laws and its largest Black immigrant population.
At nearly every stage of the immigration process, the paperwork required to establish who a person is and why they need refuge becomes the paperwork most likely to expose them if it is ultimately denied. The current situation leaves Black LGBTI+ migrants trapped in a closed circuit of violence and oppression that spans from African homophobia to U.S. state laws and federal immigration restrictions.
The next steps for affected migrants remain uncertain. The U.S. administration’s refugee cap and ACA policies are subject to congressional review, while state laws such as Texas’s S.B. 4 face legal challenges. In Africa, several anti‑LGBTI+ bills are still pending in parliament, and international pressure may influence future legislative outcomes.
