The South African flag and US President Donald Trump.

By Chris Spiker From Daily Voice

The Trump administration will only admit 7,500 refugees into the US, with most slots reserved for white South Africans, sparking backlash from advocates and civil rights groups.

The refugee cap was revealed in a memo published in the Federal Register on Thursday, Oct. 30. The refugee limit of 7,500 will be in effect for fiscal year 2026, which spans from October 2025 to September 2026.

The 2026 cap is even lower than it was at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The ceiling was just 18,000 at the end of President Donald Trump's first term in 2020, according to the Migration Policy Institute.

Most refugees will be white South Africans identified as Afrikaners. President Donald Trump has previously pushed false accusations of a "white genocide" in South Africa and granted refugee status to Afrikaners in February.

The Trump administration claims that white South Africans are facing "unjust racial discrimination."

"The admissions of up to 7,500 refugees to the United States during fiscal year 2026 is justified by humanitarian concerns or is otherwise in the national interest," the memo read.

South Africa's government has denied that Afrikaners and other white South Africans are being persecuted. During the apartheid era, white South Africans instituted brutal forms of segregation and discrimination against the country's Black majority.

Afrikaners are ethnically European descendants of settlers and colonists, primarily from the Netherlands. The Trump administration welcomed the first group of Afrikaners as refugees in May.

The decision marks a steep drop from the Biden administration's refugee ceiling of 125,000 in fiscal year 2025, Politico reported. It also significantly narrows eligibility under what has long been a bipartisan humanitarian program.

Oversight of refugee resettlement will also shift from the State Department to the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Refugee Resettlement. The HHS office previously focused on migrant shelters and unaccompanied minors.

Earlier in October, Global Refuge criticized the Trump administration after early reports emerged about the planned 7,500 refugee cap. The national refugee resettlement organization is based in Baltimore.

Global Refuge president and CEO Krish O'Mara Vignarajah said the new policy undermines the nation's role as a humanitarian leader.

"The US refugee admissions program is one of the few remaining expressions of America's humanitarian leadership on the world stage," Vignarajah said. "To drastically lower the admissions cap and concentrate the majority of available slots on one group would mark a profound departure from decades of bipartisan refugee policy rooted in law, fairness, and global responsibility."

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and US President Donald Trump during a White House meeting on May 21, 2025.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and US President Donald Trump during a White House meeting on May 21, 2025.

Wikimedia Commons - The White House

Asian Americans Advancing Justice also condemned the policy, noting that more than half of admissions in fiscal year 2025 were allocated to refugees from East Asia, the Middle East, and South Asia. 

"President Trump's reported plans to drastically cut refugee admissions at a time when the number of refugees is at historic highs is a clear example of his administration’s anti-immigrant and racist agenda," the organization said. "The decades-old refugee admission system reflects a bipartisan agreement about the ideals of America – that we welcome and help those fleeing persecution."

AAAJ also denounced the Trump administration's focus on white South Africans, who haven't been given refugee status by the United Nations.

"Meanwhile, tens of thousands of United Nations-recognized refugees who were already vetted and were prevented from resettling in the US when the Trump Administration halted refugee admissions in 2025 would not receive the same attention," the organization said.

The low refugee cap is the latest move in Trump's immigration crackdown, which has included more raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. The Trump administration has scrapped Biden-era protections that offered temporary legal status to Afghans, Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelan migrants.

The changes also come after the State Department largely gutted its Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration after mass layoffs in July.