The Trump administration will limit the number of refugees admitted to the US to 7,500, and give priority to white South Africans.
The move, announced in a notice published on Thursday, will apply for the next fiscal year and marks a dramatic cut from the previous limit of 125,000 set by former President Joe Biden.
No reason was given for the cut, but the notice said it was “justified by humanitarian concerns or is otherwise in the national interest”.
In January 2025, Trump signed an executive order suspending the US Refugee Admissions Programme, or USRAP, which he said would allow US authorities to prioritise national security and public safety.
The notice posted to the website of the Federal Register said the 7,500 admissions would “primarily” be allocated to Afrikaner South Africans and “other victims of illegal or unjust discrimination in their respective homelands”.
In the Oval Office in May, Trump criticised South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and claimed white farmers in his nation were being killed and “persecuted”.
The White House also played a video which they said showed burial sites for murdered white farmers. Trump said he did not know where in South Africa the scene was filmed.
The tense meeting came just days after the US granted asylum to 60 Afrikaners. It later emerged that the videos were scenes from a 2020 protest in which the crosses represented farmers killed over multiple years.
On his first day in office on 20 January, Trump said the US would suspend USRAP to reflect the US’s lack of “ability to absorb large numbers of migrants, and in particular, refugees, into its communities in a manner that does not compromise the availability of resources for Americans” and “protects their safety and security”.
The US policy of accepting white South Africans has already prompted accusations of unfair treatment from refugee advocacy groups.
Some have argued the US is now effectively shut to other persecuted groups or people facing potential harm in their home country, and even former allies that helped US forces in Afghanistan or the Middle East.
“This decision doesn’t just lower the refugee admissions ceiling,” Global Refuge CEO and president Krish O’Mara Vignarajah said on Thursday. “It lowers our moral standing.”
“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 programme’s purpose as well as its credibility,” she added.
The South African government has yet to respond to the latest announcement.
During the Oval Office meeting, President Ramaphosa said only that he hoped that Trump officials would listen to South Africans about the issue, and later said he believed there is “doubt and disbelief about all this in [Trump’s] head”.
