The Trump administration announced Thursday that it will significantly reduce the number of refugees the United States will accept in the upcoming fiscal year and prioritize white South Africans who it says are facing discrimination in their home country.
According to notices published in the Federal Register, the U.S. will admit no more than 7,500 refugees between October 2025 and September 2026. The guidance explicitly states that Afrikaner refugees and other victims of illegal or unjust discrimination in their respective homelands will receive priority.
The new cap marks a sharp reduction from the Biden administration, which admitted roughly 100,000 refugees annually. It also represents the lowest refugee intake since the 1970s, when the limit stood at 17,000 per year. Even during the COVID-19 pandemic under Trump’s first term, the United States accepted at least 11,000 refugees annually, Politico reported.
In a significant procedural shift, the administration announced that oversight of refugee resettlement contracts will move from the State Department to the Office of Refugee Resettlement within the Department of Health and Human Services — a major departure from how the U.S. refugee program has traditionally been managed.
The administration did not provide much of an explanation for the changes in the notice, but did stress the need to conduct refugee resettlement “in a manner that serves the national interest, promotes efficient use of taxpayer dollars, protects the integrity of the United States immigration system, and supports refugees in achieving early economic self-sufficiency and assimilation into American society.”
The administrative overhaul follows a July layoff at the State Department that effectively dismantled its Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, which had been responsible for coordinating refugee operations with U.S. embassies worldwide, the outlet reported.
Previously, the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) primarily managed shelters for migrants — including unaccompanied minors — and distributed assistance to refugee families. Under the new structure, ORR will assume full responsibility for working with public and private partners to resettle refugees across the United States and provide financial support for those programs, noted Politico.
The White House said that “no refugees will be admitted in FY26 until the appropriate consultations with Congress are held, which are being delayed because certain members of Congress insisted on shutting down the government.”
The notice went on to say that the Trump administration is looking to “end” the “abuse of the refugee program” under President Joe Biden.
The policy shift underscores the Trump administration’s broader effort to tighten immigration controls and impose stricter limits on who can enter the United States, while also intensifying enforcement against unauthorized migration. Earlier this year, the administration ended several Biden-era programs that had granted temporary legal status to migrants from Afghanistan, Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.
Officials have also indicated that similar programs for migrants from El Salvador and Honduras may be phased out in the near future, noted Politico.
Earlier this year, left-wing media outlets like MSNBC criticized President Trump for allowing a few dozen Afrikaners into the country as refugees because they are white.
The administration welcomed 59 South Africans granted refugee status in the United States, citing racial discrimination as the basis for their admission. The move also drew criticism from Democrats, however, who made the issue about race.
While Trump has restricted refugee admissions from many non-white populations globally, he announced in February that the U.S. would offer resettlement to Afrikaners, descendants of primarily Dutch settlers, after many said they were increasingly subjected to discrimination in the black-majority country.
Asked about his February executive order granting refugee status to white South Africans, Trump said on Monday, “It’s a genocide that’s taking place.” Reuters and other outlets claimed Trump didn’t have any evidence to back up his claim.
But then-Trump adviser Elon Musk, who is South African, cited in an X post a political rally that took place last Friday in South Africa, where Black leaders of a far-left opposition party sang a song that has the lyrics “Kill the Boer, the farmer.”
Boer is a word that refers to an Afrikaner.