Trump slashes refugee intake to 7500. It'll be mostly white South Africans

Friday, 31 October 2025 04:22

No reason was given for the numbers, which are a dramatic decrease from last year's ceiling of 125,000 set under Democratic former president Joe Biden.

The Trump administration is restricting the number of refugees it admits annually into the country to 7500 and they will mostly be white South Africans, a dramatic drop after the US previously allowed in hundreds of thousands of people fleeing war and persecution from around the world.

The Republican administration published the news on Thursday (early Friday AEDT) in a notice on the Federal Registry.

No reason was given for the numbers, which are a dramatic decrease from last year's ceiling of 125,000 set under Democratic former president Joe Biden.

The Associated Press previously reported that the administration was considering admitting as few as 7500 refugees and mostly white South Africans.

The memo said only that the admission of the 7500 refugees during 2026 fiscal year was "justified by humanitarian concerns or is otherwise in the national interest".

The slashed cap represents another blow for the long-standing program that until recently has enjoyed bipartisan support.

Trump suspended the program on his first day in office and since then only a trickle of refugees have entered the country, mostly white South Africans.

Some refugees have also been admitted as part of a court case seeking to allow entry to refugees who were overseas and in the process of coming to the US when the program was suspended.

The administration announced the program for the Afrikaners in February, saying that white South African farmers face discrimination and violence at home. The country's government strongly denies this characterisation.

Across the country, groups that work to help resettle newly arrived refugees into the country have had to lay off staff as the number of people arriving under the longstanding program plummeted.

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