The Trump administration on Thursday announced a sharp reduction in the number of refugees it will admit into the country next year.
The refugee cap for fiscal year 2026 will be set at 7,500 with priority given to Afrikaners — a predominantly white minority group in South Africa — and “other victims of illegal or unjust discrimination in their respective homelands,” according to a notice published in the Federal Register. By comparison, the U.S. admitted more than 100,000 refugees under former President Joe Biden in fiscal year 2024 — the highest figure since 1994 — according to the Migration Policy Institute.
The notice described the new limit as “justified by humanitarian concerns or is otherwise in the national interest.”
A senior Trump official told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the administration “has long expressed its intention to end Biden’s abuse of the refugee program,” and noted that the ongoing government shutdown will affect refugee admissions.
“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 official said.
The move reflects President Donald Trump’s broader effort to tighten asylum standards and “realign” U.S. policy, and for the first time focusing on a predominantly white minority facing persecution abroad.
“Cities and small towns alike, from Charleroi, Pennsylvania, and Springfield, Ohio, to Whitewater, Wisconsin, have seen significant influxes of migrants,” Trump wrote in his Jan. 20 executive order temporarily suspending the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, which is currently being challenged in court.
“The United States lacks the 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, that protects their safety and security, and that ensures the appropriate assimilation of refugees,” the order continued.
Since returning to office, Trump has highlighted the persecution of Afrikaners, the minority group of predominantly Dutch descent, whose personal accounts of violence and discrimination have been documented by the Daily Caller. In May, the president signed an executive order promoting their resettlement, and several groups have already arrived in the U.S.
Trump’s order accuses the South African government of showing “disregard” for the rights of its citizens through “countless government policies designed to dismantle equal opportunity in employment, education, and business, and hateful rhetoric and government actions fueling disproportionate violence against racially disfavored landowners.”
The administration has also urged the United Nations to revise international asylum rules, arguing that migrants should seek protection in the first country they enter rather than “asylum shopping” for a destination of choice, and calling the current framework a “haphazard and chaotic system” routinely abused by bad actors.
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