The first group of Afrikaners from South Africa arrived for resettlement in the U.S. on May 12. Under a new Trump administration policy, the number of refugees allowed into the country will be reduced to as low as 7,500 this year, with white South Africans prioritized over everyone else. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)
President Donald Trump is slashing the number of refugees allowed into the United States, and people fleeing war-torn countries, human rights abuses and catastrophes will now be of lower priority than white people from South Africa.
The Trump administration is cutting the number of refugee places to as few as 7,500, for the 2026 fiscal year that began on Oct. 1, down from a limit of 125,000 last year under the Biden administration.
The White House did not provide a reason for the drastically lower numbers, which were published in a notice on the Federal Register, but this new cap sets a historic low for refugees being admitted to the U.S. since the program’s inception in 1980.
The notice was published on Sept. 30 but became official on Thursday.
It states admission will “primarily be allocated” to the Afrikaner white minority from South Africa, which Trump and some of his supporters allege face “race-based” discrimination and violence at home — even claiming, without reliable evidence, that they are at risk of “genocide.”
But Afghans fleeing persecution under the Taliban, including women facing gender-based violence under the Islamist regime, people escaping the war in Sudan or gang violence in places like Haiti were not considered priorities under the new policy, only Afrikaners.
Trump ambushes South African president with claims of genocide
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Sharif Aly, president of the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP), says the U.S. government is “politicizing a humanitarian program” and giving special privilege to Afrikaners.
“It is egregious to exclude refugees who completed years of rigorous security checks and are currently stuck in dangerous and precarious situations,” Aly said in a statement.
Trump policy follows unsubstantiated claims
Aly said this latest order shows “how far this administration has gone when it comes to abandoning its responsibilities to displaced people around the world.”
IRAP is already suing the Trump administration after the president signed an executive order, on his first day in office earlier this year, indefinitely suspending the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program until it “aligns with the interests” with the country.
But months later, Trump began opening the door to white South Africans, announcing a new program earlier this year to fast-track the relocation of Afrikaner farmers making unsubstantiated claims they were being subjected to systematic violence.
The South African government has strongly denied this.
Around 70 white South Africans were relocated to the U.S. in two groups in May and June in what U.S. officials described as the start of the program.
Approximately 400 white South Africans in total have reportedly been moved to the U.S. already.
The Washington Post, citing unnamed officials, reported that the U.S. State Department “has set a goal of processing 2,000 Afrikaners for resettlement by the end of October and an additional 4,000 by the end of November.”
There are around 2.7 million Afrikaners in South Africa’s population of 62 million, which is more than 80 per cent Black.
Afrikaners, who were at the heart of the country’s apartheid system of racial segregation that lasted from 1948 until 1994, are today represented in every facet of South African life and are successful business leaders, some of the country’s best-known athletes and also serve in government.
The Current11:01Why Trump has South Africa in his sights
Lowering ‘our moral standing’
By comparison, among the top countries of origin for the more than 100,000 refugees admitted into the U.S. in 2024 were the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Afghanistan and Syria — countries that have endured years of horrific violence.
Putting the focus on one group “undermines the [refugee] program’s purpose as well as its credibility,” said Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of Global Refuge, a U.S.-based resettlement agency.
“This decision doesn’t just lower the refugee admissions ceiling. It lowers our moral standing,” she said in a statement on the group’s website.
The advocacy group Human Rights First called the policy “blatantly racist.”
“Turning our back on hundreds of thousands of truly at-risk refugees fleeing religious, political, and other forms of persecution defies decades of bipartisan support for welcoming the vulnerable, from Vietnamese to Afghan allies,” Uzra Zeya, the organization’s president and a former U.S. State Department official, said in a statement.
Congolese refugees line up to receive aid during a food distribution operation at the Musenyi refugee site in Giharo, Burundi, on May 7. More than 71,000 people fled to Burundi between January and May amid ongoing violence in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo. (Luis Tato/AFP/Getty Images)
Guerline Jozef, director of immigration for Haitian Bridge Alliance, called the new cap “white supremacy disguised as refugee policy.”
“At a time when Black refugees from Haiti, Sudan, the Congo and Cameroon are drowning at sea, languishing in detention or being deported to death, the U.S. government has decided to open its arms to those who already enjoy global privilege,” she said, according to The Independent.
Shawn VanDiver, president of #AfghanEvac, which advocates for resettling at-risk Afghans, described the decision Thursday as a “horrendous betrayal.”
“I think we need to face facts. This means that the president and the White House … are not going to allow Afghan refugees to come here,” he said in a video posted on Instagram. “This is a really bad day.”
