Trump sets the lowest refugee cap in US history, allocating 7,500 spots, mostly for Afrikaners

The Trump Administration on Thursday announced that it will set the lowest refugee admission cap in US history, allocating 7,500 spots this fiscal year, mainly for Afrikaners, especially Afrikaans who say they face racial discrimination in South Africa for being white.

The previous lowest ceiling for refugees was set by the first Trump administration in 2020, when they targeted 15,000 spots in the 2021 fiscal year.

This announcement on Thursday is the latest attempt by Mr. Trump and his superiors are desperate to bring back, surprisingly, a policy of people at risk of fleeing war and violence around the world that once enjoyed bipartisan support.

Mr Trump suspended the US Refugee Support Program after taking office for a second term earlier this year, citing difficulties in American communities receiving refugees and concerns about the admissions process. Within weeks, his administration pardoned the Afrikaners, calling them victims of racial oppression.

In an order posted in the Federal Government Journal of Regathels, Mr. Trump said that the 7,500 refugee places for the fiscal year “will be distributed mainly among Afrikaners” and “other victims of illegal discrimination in the respective countries.” Fiscal Year 2026 began on Oct. 1 and ends in September 2026.

The South African government is disowned by Afrikaners and other white South Africans. Before the 1990s, white South Africans imposed a brutal system of apartheid on the majority of the country’s black population.

Afrikaners are an ethnic group in South Africa made up of descendants of European immigrants and colonists, mainly from the Netherlands, who first arrived there in the 1600s. The Trump administration accepted The first group of Afrikaners granted refugee status in May.

The prioritization of Afrikaners – while refugees from places like Afghanistan, Myanmar and Sudan concerned about ethnic violence and armed conflicts are banned from entering the US – has led to special treatment among refugee advocates.

Krish O’mara Vignarajah, President of Sumbolor Recer, has traditionally worked with the US government to return refugees, said Mr. Trump is our moral judgment. “

“In times of crisis in countries from Afghanistan to Venezuela to Sudan and beyond, they are very focused on one party’s maturity and trust,” he added.

Officially created in 1980, the US refugee program is designed to provide safe harbor to people fleeing abroad because of their race, religion, political views or social group membership.

Before the second Trump refugees took office, refugees were usually transferred to United Nations officials and stayed for months or safety and medical protection, before being found on American soil, caused by those who enter American soil, including those who enter the US illegally.

Over the past decades, most of those admitted to the US as refugees have come from countries in Africa and Asia suffering from war, ethnic oppression or oppression of minority groups, the State Department said.

After admitting refugees revealed a record low of 11,000 in the year 2021 – mainly due to the reduction of trump-19 and the impact of the covid-19 pandemic – The control of the bid greatly expanded the program.

In fiscal year 2024, the biden administration accepted more than 100,000 refugees, the highest level since the 1990s, according to government data. Authorities stopped publishing data on refugee admissions after Mr. Trump returned to the White House.