Donald Trump has set the lowest refugee admission cap in the country’s history, limiting entry to just 7,500 for the fiscal year 2026.
The Trump administration stated in a presidential document from September 30 that the refugee system in the US would remain largely unaffected by the millions of refugees fleeing unsafe conditions.
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Instead of white South Africans receiving the highest priority among the 7,500 slots available,
According to Executive Order 14204, “The admissions numbers shall primarily be distributed among Afrikaners from South Africa and other victims of illegal or unjust discrimination in their respective homelands,” the document stated.
Trump has repeatedly claimed that white South Africans are facing persecution there because of their Black status, a claim that the country’s top Afrikaner officials and the government have refuted.
The Trump administration’s decision to focus on the organizations that deal with refugee services went beyond Thursday’s filings.
Instead, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement will be rerouted to the current refugee resettlement grants and contracts, which are currently distributed to a number of public and private organizations.
A separate declaration stated that “the transfer ensures better alignment of resources, oversight, and accountability] of] resettlement activities that take place entirely within the United States.
Since the 1980 Refugee Act codified a formal procedure for admitting and relocating refugees to the US, Trump’s refugee cap is the lowest.
At least two million refugees have emigrated since then through the USRAP, or US Refugee Admissions Program. Immigrant rights organizations successfully challenged Trump’s plan to suspend the program when he took office.
The 7,500-person cap on Thursday represents only a small portion of the 125, 000 refugees who were permitted to enter under former president Joe Biden during his final year in office. The new, lower cap will run from October 2025 to September 2026.
There are currently 42.7 million refugees on the planet, according to the UNHCR.
There is no bottom cap, but presidents have the power to impose a cap on annual refugee admissions under the US Refugee Act. That has long raised the possibility that Trump, who cut admissions in his first term, could bring USRAP to a halt.
“Death for a crown jewel”
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, noted that Trump’s declaration appeared to change the definition of who is a refugee in a post on the social media platform X.
Trump’s new refugee determination, he wrote, “seems to call for the admission of refugees who wouldn’t fall under the definition of a refugee — someone who faces persecution (not ‘discrimination’) on the grounds of race, religion, nationality, affiliation with a particular social group, or political opinion.”
He added that “people fleeing ethnic cleansing and other horrors” have been acknowledged by the US refugee program for decades.
He said, “Now it will be used as a pathway for White immigration.” What a failure for America’s most renowned international humanitarian initiatives.
Trump did not appear to have adhered to the necessary congressional consultation process before announcing the cap, according to the International Refugee Assistance Project. The group criticized the action as being overtly political.
The organization’s president, Sharif Aly, said in a statement that “Today’s announcement highlights how far this administration has gone in terms of reneging on its obligations to displaced people around the world.
The statement read, “America’s refugee program was created to reflect our values, and the thousands of people we’ve closed our doors to represent the thousands of missed opportunities of people who could have strengthened a local community or economy,” according to the statement.
Trump’s declaration did not provide a justification for the dramatic drop in refugee admissions, stating only that it was “justified by humanitarian concerns or is otherwise in the national interest.”
Some advocates had hoped that the refugee program, which historically had broad bipartisan support, might be spared, but the US president has led a massive crackdown on all forms of immigration since taking office.
The US withdrawal from Afghanistan has increased the cross-aisle support in recent years, with many politicians supporting Afghans who worked for or with allies or their allies as aides to immigration.
While other specialized immigration programs are still obstructed or behind schedule, many Afghans have relied on the refugee program.
Trump has focused primarily on white Afrikaners since taking office for a second term. For instance, Trump cut aid to South Africa in Executive Order 14204, which was issued in February, on the grounds that it showed “shocking disregard” for Afrikaners.
White South Africans were “victims of unjust racial discrimination,” according to the order’s recommendation that they should receive humanitarian assistance, including refugee admissions.
