Washington, DC – United States President Donald Trump has introduced the bottom refugee admission cap within the nation’s historical past, limiting entry to only 7,500 folks for the fiscal 12 months 2026.
In a presidential doc revealed on Thursday however dated September 30, the Trump administration indicated that the US refugee system would stay largely closed to the tens of millions of individuals world wide fleeing unsafe situations.
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As a substitute, precedence for the 7,500 obtainable slots can be given to white Afrikaners from South Africa.
“The admissions numbers shall primarily be allotted amongst Afrikaners from South Africa pursuant to Govt Order 14204 and different victims of unlawful or unjust discrimination of their respective homelands,” the doc mentioned.
Trump has repeatedly said white South Africans are being persecuted within the Black-majority nation, a declare rejected by South Africa’s authorities and high Afrikaner officers.
Thursday’s filings additionally indicated that the Trump administration would chop the teams that deal with refugee providers transferring ahead.
Refugee resettlement grants and contracts that at present go to an array of private and non-private organisations will as a substitute be rerouted to the Workplace of Refugee Resettlement within the Division of Well being and Human Providers.
“The switch ensures higher alignment of sources, oversight, and accountability [of] resettlement actions that happen solely inside the USA,” a separate declaration mentioned.
Trump’s refugee cap is the bottom since Congress handed the Refugee Act of 1980, which codified a proper course of for admitting and relocating refugees to the US.
Since then, no less than two million refugees have arrived by means of the US Refugee Admissions Program or USRAP. Trump sought to droop the programme upon taking workplace, prompting a profitable authorized problem from immigrant rights teams.
Thursday’s cap of seven,500 is barely a fraction of the 125,000 refugees allowed to enter below former President Joe Biden throughout his closing 12 months in workplace. The brand new, decrease cap is about to final from October 2025 by means of September 2026.
Based on the United Nations Excessive Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), there are at present 42.7 million refugees globally.
The US Refugee Act permits presidents to set a cap on the variety of annual refugee admissions, however there isn’t any backside restrict. That has lengthy sparked considerations that Trump, who slashed admissions throughout his first time period, may successfully grind USRAP to a halt.
‘Downfall for a crown jewel’
In a submit on the social media platform X, Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow on the American Immigration Council, famous that Trump’s declaration appeared to shift the definition of whom Washington considers to be a refugee.
“Trump’s new refugee willpower seems to name for admitting refugees who wouldn’t meet the definition of refugee — somebody who faces persecution (not ‘discrimination’) on the idea of race, faith, nationality, membership in a specific social group, or political opinion,” he wrote.
He added that, for many years, the US refugee programme has admitted “folks fleeing ethnic cleaning and different horrors”.
“Now will probably be used as a pathway for White immigration,” he mentioned. “What a downfall for a crown jewel of America’s worldwide humanitarian packages.”
The Worldwide Refugee Help Undertaking, in the meantime, mentioned that Trump didn’t seem to comply with the required congressional session course of earlier than asserting the cap. The group dismissed the transfer as baldly political.
“As we speak’s announcement highlights simply how far this administration has gone relating to abandoning its tasks to displaced folks world wide,” the organisation’s president, Sharif Aly, mentioned in a press release.
“America’s refugee program was constructed to replicate our values, and the hundreds of people we’ve closed our doorways to characterize hundreds of missed alternatives of people that may have strengthened a local people or financial system,” the assertion mentioned.
Trump’s declaration didn’t give a motive for the large minimize in refugee admissions, saying solely that the quantity was “justified by humanitarian considerations or is in any other case within the nationwide curiosity”.
The US president has led a large crackdown on all types of immigration since taking workplace, however some advocates had hoped that the refugee programme — which traditionally had broad bipartisan help — may be spared.
The cross-aisle support has been buoyed in recent times by the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, with many politicians supporting pathways to immigration for Afghans who labored alongside the US army or allied forces and corporations.
Many Afghans have relied on the refugee programme whereas different specialised immigration programmes stay constricted or backlogged.
Since taking workplace for a second time period, Trump, nevertheless, has targeted closely on white Afrikaners. In February, for example, Trump issued Govt Order 14204 to chop support to South Africa, on the idea that it demonstrated “stunning disregard” for Afrikaners.
That order additionally prioritised humanitarian reduction, together with refugee admissions, to white South Africans, on the idea that they have been “victims of unjust racial discrimination”.
The primary aircraft carrying white South Africans admitted below the brand new programme landed within the US in Could.
