The administration of US President Donald Trump has set a new refugee admission cap of 7,500 for the 2026 fiscal year, a sharp reduction from previous years, with most of the accepted refugees expected to be white South Africans, known as Afrikaners.
The Republican administration published the decision on Thursday in a notice in the Federal Register, without providing a clear justification for the steep reduction.
The figure marks a dramatic drop from last year’s ceiling of 125,000 refugees, which had been set under former Democratic President Joe Biden, according to CNN.
Earlier, sources told the Associated Press that Trump officials were considering admitting no more than 7,500 refugees, prioritizing applicants from South Africa’s white minority population.
The memorandum stated that accepting 7,500 refugees during the 2026 fiscal year is “warranted by humanitarian concerns or serves the national interest.”
The drastic cut deals another blow to the decades-old US refugee resettlement programme, which had long enjoyed bipartisan support.
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