The Trump Administration has drastically reduced the refugee admission cap for fiscal year 2026, dropping it from 125,000 to just 7,500 in a policy change that was formally added to the Federal Register on Friday, with many of those spots reserved for white South African Afrikaners.
President Trump’s new refugee cap is the lowest ever, with the next lowest coming in at 15,000 in 2021 during President Donald Trump’s first term in office.
Under former President Joe Biden, the cap was set at 125,000, and in the 2024 fiscal year, 100,060 refugees were reportedly admitted, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Before President Biden left office, he set the 2025 fiscal year cap at 125,000. Since the fiscal year started before Trump took office, the DHS has not yet released the actual number of refugees admitted in FY 2025, which ended on September 30.
The presidential determination on the 2026 numbers states that “The admissions numbers shall primarily be allocated among Afrikaners from South Africa pursuant to Executive Order 14204 and other victims of illegal or unjust discrimination in their respective homelands.”
Neither the determination nor the executive order “Addressing Egregious Actions of the Republic of South Africa” indicates how many refugee slots would be reserved for South Africans.
The policy is intended to help the white South African farmers who face discrimination from their government and often encounter what has been called racially motivated violence.
