The Trump administration limits refugee admissions to all-time lows
The Trump administration dramatically lowered the cap on refugee admissions for the new fiscal year that begins this month at 7,500, an all-time low, according to a Federal Register filing published Thursday.
The memorandum, dated September 30, said admission numbers “should be allocated primarily among South African Afrikaners,” a white ethnic minority group that controlled South Africa during apartheid, as well as “other victims of unlawful or unfair discrimination in their homelands.”
The admission allocation to white Afrikaners focuses on Trump’s commitment in an executive order this year to resettle what he described as “Afrikaner refugees fleeing government-sponsored race-based discrimination, including racially discriminatory property seizures,” even as he temporarily halted refugee admissions.
The new refugee cap is a dramatic shift from the Biden administration’s goal of 125,000 refugees and a marked decline from the record low cap of 15,000 refugees in the first Trump administration. The notice said the new cap was “justified by humanitarian concerns or is in the national interest.”
The average refugee cap for both Democratic and Republican administrations has historically hovered at 95,000.
The new measure follows South African-born Elon Musk’s repeated criticism of the country’s land ownership laws against white farmers when he was an adviser to Trump this year at the Department of Government Efficiency.
In his criticism, Musk highlighted the passage of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s expropriation law, which allows the government to seize private property, sometimes without compensation, and in certain circumstances “for a public purpose or in the public interest.”
The Trump administration in May welcomed dozens of white South Africans to the United States as part of resettlement efforts while barring the entry of refugees from most other countries, including Afghanistan, Sudan, the Republic of the Congo and Myanmar.
Trump’s executive order this year also ended US aid to South Africa, much of which is diverted to the country’s HIV/AIDS program, and accused South African officials of “taking land” from minority farmers “and treating certain groups of people very poorly.”
Top Democrats on the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, including Reps. Jamie Raskin of Maryland and Pramila Jayapal of Washington and Sens. Dick Durbin of Illinois and Alex Padilla of California, criticized Trump for the move, saying the new cap was announced without consulting Congress.
They added, “This bizarre presidential decision is not only morally indefensible, but also illegal and invalid.” He said in a statement Thursday. “The administration has brazenly ignored the legal requirement to consult with the House and Senate Judiciary Committees before setting annual caps on refugee admissions. This process exists to ensure that decisions with significant consequences reflect our nation’s values, humanitarian commitments, and the rule of law, not the racial preferences or political whims of any president.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday about Democrats’ claim that the move was illegal.
Shawn Vandiver, President and President of Afghan Evac The California-based coalition, which has helped Afghans resettle in the United States, said the cap “represents an unprecedented dismantling of the American refugee program and a moral collapse that abandons the very allies who have stood shoulder to shoulder with our forces.”