The Trump administration plans to limit the number of refugees entering the United States to 7,500 next year and give priority to white South Africans.
The move, announced in a notice published Thursday, is a dramatic cut from the previous limit of 125,000 set by President Joe Biden and would push the limit to its lowest level ever.
The reason for the cuts was not given, but the notice said they were “justified by humanitarian concerns or in the national interest.”
In January, President Trump signed an executive order suspending the United States Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) to allow U.S. authorities to prioritize national security and public safety.
The previous lowest refugee admissions cap was set by the Trump administration in 2020, allocating 15,000 for fiscal 2021.
A notice posted on the Federal Register website says the 7,500 approvals will be allocated “primarily” to Afrikaner South Africans and “other victims of unlawful or unfair discrimination in their home countries.”
Last February, the U.S. president announced an end to major aid to South Africa and proposed allowing members of the Afrikaner community (mostly white descendants of early Dutch and French settlers) to settle as refugees in the United States.
Ebrahim Rasool, South Africa’s ambassador to the United States, was expelled after accusing President Trump of mobilizing “chauvinism” and trying to “project white victimhood as a dog whistle.”
President Trump met South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in the Oval Office in May and claimed that his country’s white farmers were being murdered and “persecuted.”
The White House said it also played a video showing the burial sites of murdered white farmers. It was later revealed that the video was footage of the 2020 protests, with crosses symbolizing farmers who have been killed over the years.
The tense talks came just days after the United States granted asylum to 60 Afrikaners.
The South African government strongly denied that Afrikaners and other white South Africans were being persecuted.
On his first day in office, on January 20, President Trump said he would suspend USRAP to reflect the United States’ “lack of ability to absorb large numbers of immigrants, especially refugees, into our communities in a way that does not undermine the availability of resources to the American people” and to “protect their safety and security.”
The United States’ policy of accepting white South Africans has already prompted accusations of unfair treatment from refugee advocacy groups.
Some have argued that the United States is now effectively cut off from other persecuted groups or people who could potentially be harmed at home, or even from former allies who helped American troops in Afghanistan or the Middle East.
“This decision is not just about lowering the refugee intake limit,” Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, CEO and president of Global Refuge, said Thursday. “It lowers our moral standing.”
“At a time of crisis in countries from Afghanistan to Venezuela, Sudan and beyond, concentrating the majority of admissions on one group undermines the purpose and credibility of the program,” she added.
Refugee International also condemned the move, saying it “makes a mockery of refugee protection and American values.”
“To be frank, whatever difficulties some Afrikaners face, this population has no plausible claim to refugee status. They are not fleeing systematic persecution,” Refugee International said in a statement.
The South African government has yet to respond to the latest announcement.
At the Oval Office meeting, Ramaphosa said only that he hoped Trump officials would listen to South Africans on the issue, later saying he believed there was “doubt and distrust about all this in (Trump’s) head.”
Earlier this year, Ramaphosa signed a controversial bill that allows the government to seize privately owned land without compensation in some circumstances.
South Africa does not disclose race-based crimes, but figures released earlier this year showed 7,000 people were murdered in the country between October and December 2024.
Of these, 12 people were killed in farm attacks, and only one of the 12 was a farmer. The remaining five were farm residents and four were employees, believed to be black.
