The United States has moved to drastically shrink its refugee intake to 7,500 in the next year and will channel most of those spaces to white South Africans, marking the sharpest reduction in admissions in the programme’s history.
The decision overturns the 125,000 limit established under Joe Biden and reflects the Trump administration’s continued overhaul of US refugee policy.
A notice published Thursday confirmed the new limit and stated that the allocation is “justified by humanitarian concerns or is otherwise in the national interest”. It added that places will “primarily” be given to Afrikaner South Africans and “other victims of illegal or unjust discrimination in their respective homelands”.
Trump had already paused the US Refugee Admissions Programme in January, saying the freeze was necessary to protect American communities and ensure national security. This new ceiling plunges below the previous low of 15,000 set during his first term in 2020.
The shift follows intense diplomatic friction with South Africa earlier this year. In February, Trump cut major aid to the country and declared that Afrikaners would be welcomed to the US as refugees.
The move triggered uproar in Pretoria and the expulsion of South Africa’s ambassador to Washington, Ebrahim Rasool, who accused Trump of “mobilising a supremacism” and attempting to “project white victimhood as a dog whistle”.
Tensions escalated in May when Trump confronted President Cyril Ramaphosa in the Oval Office, insisting that white farmers in South Africa were being targeted and “persecuted”.
White House officials screened footage they claimed showed graves of murdered white farmers, but it later emerged the clips came from a 2020 protest in which crosses represented deaths that happened across several years.
That meeting occurred days after the US approved asylum for 60 Afrikaners.
South Africa has strongly rejected claims that White citizens are facing organised attacks. During the Oval Office exchange, Ramaphosa urged US officials to hear South Africa’s side and later remarked there is “doubt and disbelief about all this in [Trump’s] head”.
Trump defended the overall refugee pause when he took office, saying the country lacked the capacity to admit large numbers “in a manner that does not compromise the availability of resources for Americans” and that safety must come first.
Refugee advocates say the policy leaves other vulnerable groups shut out, including those who assisted US forces overseas.
“This decision doesn't just lower the refugee admissions ceiling,” Global Refuge chief Krish O'Mara Vignarajah said. “It lowers our moral standing.” She warned that focusing admissions on one community while crises unfold in places like Sudan, Afghanistan and Venezuela challenges the credibility of the programme.
The South African government has not officially commented on the latest announcement. Earlier this year, Ramaphosa signed a law permitting land seizures without compensation in specific situations.
Data released in South Africa showed 7,000 murders between October and December 2024.
Of those, 12 happened in farm attacks, with one victim identified as a farmer. Five victims were farm dwellers and four were employees, most likely Black.
