In August 2018, the US withdrew all funding from UNRWA—the international organisation mandated to provide care to Palestinian refugees. This exacerbated UNRWA’s existing financial crisis. Most scholarship on the backlash phenomenon in international law focuses on singular moments of pushback and the consequences for states and international institutions. In this article, I draw attention to the broader context in which such backlashes must be understood, the repercussions for natural persons and how their responses may transform aspects of the global order. Using Palestinian refugees as a case study, I examine the normative grounds on which a person may seek asylum in circumstances where the international community has not honoured promises to provide protection in situ. The application of the backlash framework to this form of cross border movement exposes gaps in debates on who should have a special claim to international protection. I argue that feminist theories of restorative justice best inform understandings of the aftermath of these types of backlashes and how the harms to individuals can be remedied.