For the fiscal year 2026, US President Donald Trump has announced that he will only accept 7,500 refugees.
This is a record low since the 1980 Refugee Act when a cap on refugees entering the country was set at 50, 000 per year, but could be changed. The US refugee resettlement program was launched that year. Former President Joe Biden’s set cap is currently 125, 000.
Furthermore, the Trump administration said priority will be given to white South Africans.
The US has used highly restrictive and frequently racist immigration policies throughout its history, despite the new cap, which represents a significant decrease in the number of refugees it has admitted in recent years.
Who will be able to enter the United States starting in 2026?
No more than 7, 500 people will be granted refugee status and these must undergo very tough checks before they can enter. The secretary of state and homeland security will need to approve it.
Trump also reaffirmed his signing of a proclamation in June that said foreigners can still be denied entry if letting them enter would harm the nation’s interests.
Why is Trump prioritising white South Africans?
Trump asserts that White Afrikanians face a “genocide” in South Africa. He signed Executive Order 14204, which read “Addressing Egregious Actions of the Republic of South Africa,” in February of this year. The order was made in response to South Africa’s Expropriation Act 13 of 2024, which allows for land to be seized and redistributed.
The order criticized South Africa for seizing land held by “ethnic minority” white South Africans. If the government continues with this, the US threatened to withhold aid from South Africa. In May, 59 white South Africans arrived in the US as part of a special refugee programme Trump established for them.
During a White House visit the same month, Trump ambushed South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, only to have him ambushed by a video of people singing “Kill the Boer” in South Africa and making claims that a “white genocide” was occurring.
“People are fleeing South Africa for their own safety,” he said. Their land is being confiscated, and in many cases, they’re being killed”, Trump said during the meeting with Ramaphosa in May.
Are white Afrikaans eligible for refugee status?
Not really, according to experts.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa signed the Act to right apartheid-era wrongs. However, the law permits the government to seize privately held land from anyone for public purposes without compensation, or in some cases without compensation.
The Act replaces a 1975 law that had received mixed reviews for its lack of clarity regarding compensation.
During apartheid, white South Africans, who are mainly Afrikaans-speaking descendants of Dutch settlers and English-speaking descendants of British colonists, held control, and often violently sidelined the Black majority.
While the apartheid era ended in 1994, about 7% of the population still lives in poverty, making up more than 70% of the land.
Ramaphosa told Trump at his White House meeting that violent crime was being committed against all South Africans, not just against white people, despite the country’s current problems.
Experts have also dismissed Trump’s claims of a white genocide.
South African historian Saul Dubow, a professor of Commonwealth history at the University of Cambridge, told Al Jazeera in May that “Trump’s fantasy claims of white genocide have no basis.”
“South Africa is one of the most unequal societies in the world in terms of economic terms and a violent nation. The violence is criminal rather than political, though racial injustice inevitably forms part of the context”.
Dubow suggested that Trump may be more enraged by Israel’s genocide case, which was filed in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in December 2023 in relation to the Gaza war.
Is this the most stringent refugee cap ever implemented by the US?
This is the lowest cap on refugees in recent history. It falls short of the original 50, 000 cap established by the 1980 Act in addition to being lower than the previous 17, 400-cape that the Act intended to replace.
The president consults with the US Congress each year to determine how many refugees are allowed into the country. For the fiscal years 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025, a maximum of 125, 000 refugees were allowed into the US.
The US refugee resettlement program was established in 1980 to assist the US in identifying, settling, and settling refugees who were escaping conflict or persecution around the world.
However, the United States did not accept large numbers of refugees before 1980 and had a history of strict laws that forbid people from obtaining citizenship in particular nations.
A history of prohibitive immigration policy in the US
Here is a list of important US immigration and citizenship laws that have affected people of a particular racial or ethnic background.
Naturalization Act of 1790
The Naturalisation Act defined limits on who could become a naturalised citizen of the US.
In accordance with this act, free white people who had resided in the US for two years and had shown good moral character could only be naturalized.
Native Americans, people who were enslaved, and non-white people were excluded.
1875: The Page Act
The Page Act, the first immigration law in the US, was signed by President Ulysses S. Grant in March 1875.
The law targeted Asian women particularly. It decreed that the US government must determine that “the immigration of any subject of China, Japan, or any Oriental country, to the United States, is free and voluntary”.
Because it forbade bringing women into the US for forced labor or sex work, the Act was written as if it were protecting vulnerable immigrants. Anyone found to have ejected and fined for entering the US without giving their permission an immigrant from an Asian nation.
However, critics have pointed out that, in practice, the Act was racist and sexist. It was made possible because many Chinese people were looking for employment in the US because of poverty and famine in China. Chinese women specifically emigrated to the US in the 1850s as workers.
According to an article published by the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS), San Francisco officials started making efforts to deport Chinese women of “ill fame” from the 1860s. The article added that “all Chinese women were most likely stereotyped as prostitutes” at the time.
The Page Act’s stigmatization of Asian women is one of its enduring effects, according to the article. Beyond facing racial discrimination, Asian women were fetishised and sexualised culturally.
The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882
The Chinese Exclusion Act, which was signed in May 1882, made it illegal for all Chinese workers to work in the US for ten years.
It also prevented Chinese immigrants from becoming naturalised citizens of the US.
The Geary Act of 1892 extended the scope of the Act until 1943 when it was overturned.
The Gentlemen’s Agreement of 1907
This was not a formal law – it was, rather, an agreement between the US and Japan.
The Japanese government was ordered to halt the immigration of Japanese laborers to the US by President Theodore Roosevelt’s negotiation.
Japanese students would still be able to enroll in integrated schools in exchange for this.
The agreement was drawn up in response to public anger about the rising number of Japanese labourers and agricultural workers who had migrated to fill the gap left by Chinese workers.
The Asiatic Barred Zone Act was passed in 1917.
Most of Asia’s nations were covered by this law, which established a “barred zone” between the Middle East and Southeast Asia.
Nationals of these countries were restricted from entering the US.
The Johnson-Reed Act from 1924
The number of people from other nations who could immigrate to the US each year was strictly dictated by this immigration law.
It stipulated a “national origins” quota, which decreed that only 2 percent of the number of people of any nationality living in the US in 1890 could enter the country each year.
Additionally, the law made it completely illegal for Asian nationals to immigrate to the US.
Trump’s own “muslim ban” in 2017
During his first term, Trump enacted a travel ban dubbed the “Muslim ban”.
Trump signed an executive order enforcing a 90-day ban on entry to the US for citizens of seven Muslim-majority nations, including Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.
Additionally, the US refugee program was permanently barred for Syrian refugees under the order.
Trump’s travel ban went through subsequent rounds of revisions. Courts initially rejected the original version because it constituted discrimination.
Venezuela and North Korea were also affected by the Supreme Court’s decision in the final version, which was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2018.
In 2021, President Joe Biden signed an executive order reversing the travel ban.
Trump’s travel ban in 2025
Trump signed a proclamation in June this year that imposed a total ban on citizens of 12 nations from entering the US, despite not regaining it during his second term. Many of them are African nations.
They include Yemen, Ethiopia, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia, and Afghanistan, Myanmar, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, and Ethiopia.
Citizens from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela are subject to some restrictions under this proclamation.
