The Trump administration has announced it’s reducing the number of refugees the United States will admit to the lowest level since the program was started 45 years ago, giving priority to white South Africans, pushing an unfounded narrative of white oppression while ignoring the plights of endangered people around the world.
Trump slashes refugee admissions while prioritizing white South Africans
In a notice published in the Federal Register, the Trump administration announced it’s cutting the number of refugees to be admitted to the United States to 7,500 for the new fiscal year. The announcement also specifies that the majority of these slots will go to Afrikaners, who are part of South Africa’s white minority.
“The admissions numbers shall primarily be allocated among Afrikaners from South Africa pursuant to Executive Order 14204, and other victims of illegal or unjust discrimination in their respective homelands,” the notice reads, referencing a February executive order that cut off U.S. aid to South Africa and prioritized “the resettlement of Afrikaner refugees escaping government-sponsored race-based discrimination, including racially discriminatory property confiscation.”
The priority given to Afrikaners, descendants of Dutch settlers in what is now South Africa, continues a narrative being pushed by the Trump administration that white South Africans are being persecuted in the country. Trump and Elon Musk, his former advisor, who was born in South Africa and immigrated after high school to Canada and then the United States, have accused the South African government of oppressing and targeting the country’s white minority. The accusations stem from a land redistribution law passed to address inequality in the country; despite the racist segregation system known as apartheid ending three decades ago, members of the country’s white minority continue to own over 70% of South Africa’s farmland. South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa has firmly rejected the idea that his government is targeting white South Africans for violence or dispossession, and even the Afrikaner community has largely rejected Trump’s offer to relocate to the United States.
Critics call out callous and ‘racist’ refugee restrictions
The 7,400 cap is the lowest number of refugees allowed since the refugee program was initiated in 1980. Typically, the United States has admitted around 95,000 refugees each year under both Democratic and Republican presidents; former President Joe Biden raised the target to 125,000 after the previous low of 15,000 during the first Trump administration. The cut aligns with Trump’s agenda to restrict immigration into the United States, which has been carried out through policies including harsh tactics by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the removal of temporary protected status for hundreds of thousands of people who have fled dangers such as the turmoil in Haiti, and travel bans for a dozen mostly Black or Muslim-majority countries.
Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, who heads the refugee resettlement organization Global Refuge, noted that the historically low cap and the preference for one group crowd out other people attempting to flee perilous situations.
“We’re hearing from Afghan women’s rights activists, Venezuelan political dissidents, Congolese families, persecuted Christians, and other religious minorities, all of whom now fear there is no room left for them in a system they trusted,” Vignarajah said.
Meanwhile, journalist Medhi Hasan was among many people calling out the administration for prioritizing white South Africans.
“Difficult to see how anyone can describe this as anything other than… racist,” Hassan posted on X, formerly Twitter.
Even as the Trump administration makes it difficult for immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers from around the world to enter or live in the United States, it has carved out a notable exception for white South Africans. Trump and his supporters seem determined to continue to promote the narrative of anti-white oppression in South Africa, and the administration has incorporated that agenda into U.S. refugee policy.