The Trump administration will limit the number of refugees accepted into the US to 7,500 over the next year and give priority to white South Africans.
The move, announced in a notice issued Thursday, marks a sharp reduction in the previous 125,000 limit set by former President Joe Biden and would result in a record low.
No reason was given for the reduction, but the notice said it was “justified on humanitarian grounds or otherwise in the national interest.”
In January, Trump signed an executive order suspending the United States Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP), which he said would allow US authorities to prioritize national security and public safety.
The previous lowest cap on refugee admissions was set by the first Trump administration in 2020, when it allocated 15,000 beds for the 2021 fiscal year.
A notice posted on the Federal Register website states that the 7,500 proceeds will be “prioritiously” allocated to Africans in South Africa and “other victims of unlawful or unfair discrimination in their homelands.”
In February, the US president announced a freeze on critical aid to South Africa and proposed allowing members of the Afrikaner community, who are mostly white descendants of early Dutch and French settlers, to settle in the US as refugees.
South Africa's ambassador to Washington, Ebrahim Rasool, was later expelled after accusing Trump of “mobilizing supremacists” and trying to “cast white victimhood as a dog whistle.”
In May, in the Oval Office, Trump confronted South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and said that white farmers in his country were being killed and “persecuted.”
The White House also showed a video they said showed the burial sites of slain white farmers. It was later revealed that these were scenes from the 2020 protest, with the crosses representing farmers killed over several years.
The tense meeting came just days after the US granted asylum to 60 Afrikaners.
The South African government categorically denies persecution of Afrikaners and other white South Africans.
On his first day in office on January 20, Trump said the US would suspend USRAP to reflect the US's lack of “ability to welcome large numbers of migrants, and refugees in particular, into its communities in a manner that does not jeopardize the availability of resources for Americans” and “protects their safety and security.”
The US policy of admitting white South Africans has already drawn accusations of unfair treatment from refugee rights groups.
Some argue that the US is now effectively closed to other persecuted groups or people facing potential harm in their home country, and even to former allies who assisted US forces in Afghanistan or the Middle East.
“This decision does more than lower the refugee admissions ceiling,” Global Refuge CEO and President Krish O'Mara Vinarajah said Thursday. “It reduces our moral authority.”
“At a time of crisis in countries from Afghanistan to Venezuela to Sudan and beyond, concentrating the vast majority of applicants in one group undermines the purpose of the program as well as its credibility,” she added.
Refugees International also criticized the move, saying it “makes a mockery of refugee protection and American values.”
“Let us be clear: whatever difficulties some Afrikaners may face, this population does not have a plausible claim to refugee status – they are not fleeing systematic persecution,” Refugees International said in a statement.
The South African government has yet to respond to the latest announcement.
During the Oval Office meeting, President Ramaphosa said only that he hoped Trump officials would listen to South Africans on the issue, and later said he believed there were “doubts and mistrust about all of this in [Trump's] head”.
Earlier this year, Ramaphosa signed a controversial law allowing the government to confiscate private land without compensation in some circumstances.
Although the country does not publish data on racially motivated crime, data released earlier this year showed that 7,000 people were killed in South Africa between October and December 2024.
Of these, 12 people died in farm attacks, and only one of the 12 was a farmer. Another five were farm residents and four employees who were likely black.
