On Thursday, the Trump administration said that the US will take in far fewer refugees in the next fiscal year. They will focus on white South Africans who they allege are being discriminated against in their native country.
The Federal Register says that between October 2025 and September 2026, the U.S. will only take in 7,500 refugees. The guidance makes it clear that Afrikaner refugees and other people who have been unfairly or illegally discriminated against in their native countries will be given precedence.
The new cap is a big drop from the Biden administration, which let in about 100,000 refugees a year. It also means that the number of refugees coming in is at its lowest since the 1970s, when the maximum was 17,000 per year. Politico said that even during Trump’s first term, when COVID-19 was going on, the U.S. took in at least 11,000 refugees per year.
The administration made a big change to the way the U.S. refugee program has been run in the past. They said that the Office of Refugee Resettlement within the Department of Health and Human Services will now be in charge of overseeing refugee resettlement contracts instead of the State Department.
The administration didn’t give a lot of reasons for the changes in the notice, but they did stress the need to carry out refugee resettlement “in a way that serves the national interest, promotes the efficient use of taxpayer dollars, protects the integrity of the United States immigration system, and helps refugees become economically self-sufficient and integrate into American society.”
According to the outlet, the administrative changes came after the State Department laid off workers in July, which effectively ended its Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration. This bureau was in charge of coordinating refugee activities with U.S. embassies around the world.
The Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) used to be in charge of shelters for migrants, especially unaccompanied youngsters, and giving money to refugee families. Politico said that ORR will be fully responsible for working with both public and private partners to resettle refugees around the United States and pay for such programs under the new organization.
The White House announced, “No refugees will be allowed in FY26 until the right talks with Congress are held. These talks are being put off because some members of Congress want to shut down the government.”
The letter also said that the Trump administration wants to “end” the “abuse of the refugee program” that happened under President Joe Biden.
The change in policy is part of the Trump administration’s larger aim to make it harder for people to come to the United States and to crack down on people who come here without permission. The government canceled a number of Biden-era initiatives earlier this year that had given migrants from Afghanistan, Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela temporary legal status.
Politico also said that officials have said that similar programs for migrants from El Salvador and Honduras may end soon.
Earlier this year, left-leaning news channels like MSNBC said that President Trump was wrong to admit a few dozen white Afrikaners into the country as refugees.
The government let in 59 South Africans who were given refugee status in the US because they said they were being discriminated against because of their race. Democrats, on the other hand, criticized the move and made it about race.
Trump has limited the number of refugees who can come to the U.S. from many non-white countries around the world. However, in February he said that the U.S. would help Afrikaners, who are mostly descendants of Dutch settlers, move to the U.S. after many said they were facing more discrimination in the black-majority country.
When asked about his February executive order giving white South Africans refugee status, Trump remarked on Monday, “It’s a genocide that’s happening.” Reuters and other news organizations said that Trump didn’t have any proof to back up his assertion.
But then-Trump adviser Elon Musk, who is from South Africa, talked about a political event that happened last Friday in South Africa. At the rally, Black leaders of a far-left opposition party sung a song with the words “Kill the Boer, the farmer.”
The word “Boer” means “Afrikaner.”
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