Story highlights Ty Cobb and Becca Heller: President Donald Trump's refugee plan will cause real harm for real people

Order threatens the lives of LGBTQ people seeking refuge from violence in the Middle East and North Africa, they say

Ty Cobb is the director of global programs at the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer civil rights organization in the United States. Becca Heller is the director and co-founder of the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP) at the Urban Justice Center and a visiting clinical lecturer in law at Yale Law School. The views expressed in this commentary are their own.

(CNN) Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people have long faced serious persecution by governments, paramilitary organizations and their own families in the Middle East and North Africa. The rise of the Islamic State has produced particularly horrific instances of targeted violence and bloodshed.

Gay and bisexual men, as well as transgender men and women, have been publicly identified as targets for violence. Accusations of being gay have often been used as justification to kill anyone caught in the crosshairs. They have been methodically hunted down through social media and phone logs. When caught, ISIS militants have tied nooses around these men's necks and dragged them behind trucks, burned them alive, thrown them off buildings and stoned them to death.

Ty Cobb

Lesbians and bisexual women are no better off. Like too many women in the Middle East, they are often forced or sold into opposite-sex marriages, sexually assaulted and even beaten or starved to death by husbands or families who reject them as a stain on their honor.

They flee and become refugees to save their own lives. US President Donald Trump's recent announcement is tantamount to a death sentence for many of these refugees.

Becca Heller

By slashing the number of refugees allowed into the US from 110,000 to 50,000 and bringing the refugee system to a complete halt for 120 days, President Trump's refugee plan will cause real harm for real people. And, it appears his administration may no longer prioritize admission for LGBTQ refugees who are escaping extreme violence.

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