The Trump administration is going to restrict the number of refugees it admits into the United States next year to the token level of just 7,500 – and those spots will mostly be filled by white South Africans.
The low number represents a dramatic drop after the US previously allowed in hundreds of thousands of people fleeing war and persecution from around the world.
The administration published the news on Thursday in a notice on the Federal Registry.
No reason was given for the drop in numbers, which are a dramatic decrease from last year’s ceiling set under the Biden administration of 125,000.
The Associated Press previously reported that the administration was considering admitting as few as 7,500 refugees and mostly white South Africans.
The government memo said only that the admission of the 7,500 refugees during 2026 fiscal year was “justified by humanitarian concerns or is otherwise in the national interest”.
The figure had previously been reported after documents about the plans were leaked.
The announcement swiftly drew criticism from refugee organizations, with the International Refugee Assistance Project saying: “This determination makes it painfully clear that the Trump administration values politics over protection.”
“By privileging Afrikaners while continuing to ban thousands of refugees who have already been vetted and approved, the administration is once again politicizing a humanitarian program. It is egregious to exclude refugees who completed years of rigorous security checks and are currently stuck in dangerous and precarious situations,” it added.
Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, CEO of the US-based Global Refuge, took issue with the ethics of the decision.
She said: “This decision doesn’t just lower the refugee admissions ceiling. It lowers our moral standing. For more than four decades, the US refugee program has been a lifeline for families fleeing war, persecution, and repression. At a time of crisis in countries ranging from Afghanistan to Venezuela to Sudan and beyond, concentrating the vast majority of admissions on one group undermines the program’s purpose as well as its credibility.”
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council posted on X.
He wrote: “Since the US Refugee Program was created in 1980, it has admitted over two million people fleeing ethnic cleansing and other horrors. Now it will be used as a pathway for white immigration. What a downfall for a crown jewel of America’s international humanitarian programs.”
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In February, Trump signed an executive order to cut financial aid to South Africa after he accused its Black-led government of “unjust racial discrimination” to white Afrikaners, a minority group who are descendants of Dutch and French colonial settlers.
The Trump administration has repeatedly claimed that the South African government is implementing anti-white policies through a new land expropriation law that allegedly targets Afrikaners’ land.
The South African government has pushed back, calling the claims false as well as denying US accusations that Afrikaners are being subjected to racially motivated violence in rural areas.
Across South Africa, 72% of farms and agricultural holdings are owned by white individuals, who make up 7.3% of the total population of the country, according to Action for Southern Africa. Meanwhile, Black Africans, who make up 81.4% of the country’s population, only own around 4% of the land.
Thursday’s announcement is not the first time Trump has slashed refugee resettlement numbers.
During his first term, in 2020, Trump set a limit of 15,000 refugees for the 2021 fiscal year. The previous year, in 2019, he had already reduced the limit to 18,000 for the 2020 fiscal year.
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
