The Trump administration plans to cap next year’s refugee inflow at 17,500 people, down from the 125,000 target set under President Joe Biden.
The State Department laid out the plan in a notice sent to Congress on Tuesday, a week before the 2027 fiscal year opens in October. Admissions will “primarily be Afrikaners from South Africa,” the notice says, naming the Afrikaans-speaking white minority descended from Dutch and French settlers.
Biden’s agencies set the 125,000 target in his last year in office. Resettlement contractors put the long-run average at roughly 92,000 a year since the program started in 1980. Trump’s first term bottomed out at 15,000.
The administration set last year’s ceiling at 7,500, then lifted it to 17,500 after declaring that unforeseen developments in South Africa had created an emergency. Next year’s number holds at that level.
The notice argues Afrikaners face land seizures without compensation, policies that push them out of jobs and classrooms, and rhetoric that fuels violence against them. It also tells Congress the arrivals will assimilate in a way that “preserves taxpayer resources for U.S. citizens.”
Resettlement is projected to cost $500 million.
The refugee program transports invited migrants from favored countries and hands them special federal aid for several years. Once here, they are eligible for nearly all welfare programs, which deliver steady rent payments and consumer spending to nearby landlords and employers.
Applicants from Afghanistan, Sudan, the Republic of Congo, and Myanmar have been shut out since Trump reopened the program for Afrikaners.
Pro-migration groups that are paid to place refugees in American communities attacked the decision. Naomi Steinberg of HIAS claimed the administration is “diminishing and distorting” a four-decade legacy in service of political whims.
Marco Rubio’s State Department announced visa restrictions on South African officials last week over uncompensated land seizures and race-based discrimination. Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola argued the move echoed a mischaracterization pushed by fringe groups. Ramaphosa’s office asserted a sovereign right to address centuries of racial injustice.
U.S. Ambassador Brent Bozell said the visa policy is only the first step in a series of escalatory measures.
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