Trump administration raises US refugee cap, but only for white South
Africans
[May 27, 2026]
By REBECCA SANTANA and SEUNG MIN KIM
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration said Tuesday that it will
admit an additional 10,000 white South Africans into the U.S. as
refugees this year, increasing its historically low annual cap but still
blocking people from other countries from entering through the program.
Trump suspended the refugee program on his first day in office and,
since then, has turned it into a vehicle to allow Afrikaners — a group
of white South Africans descended mainly from Dutch settlers — into the
U.S. Advocates say the decision to focus a decades-old program on one
group has left people around the world fleeing war and strife stranded
and with few options.
The administration says Afrikaners are subject to persecution in their
home country, a charge the government in South Africa denies.
In the Tuesday announcement on the Federal Register, President Donald
Trump said that because of “an unforeseen emergency refugee situation”
he was raising the refugee cap. He blamed the South African government
for “recent increases in the incitement of racially motivated violence"
but gave no specific information.
“I hereby determine that the admission to the United States of
Afrikaners from South Africa in response to this emergency is justified
by the grave humanitarian concerns and is otherwise in the national
interest,” Trump said in the announcement.
Democrats criticize refugee cap
The administration indicated last year that it would approve up to
7,500, mostly Afrikaners, during the fiscal year stretching from October
2025 through September 2026, but last week, in a notice to Congress
informing it of the increase, the administration said that “unforeseen
developments in South Africa created an emergency refugee situation.”
The change raises the limit to 17,500.
Christopher Landau, the deputy secretary of state, and Troy Edgar, the
deputy secretary of Homeland Security, met with key congressional
committees on Thursday as part of the legally required consultation
process with lawmakers, according to two people who were granted
anonymity to discuss a private meeting.
During the hour-long session, Landau told lawmakers that one of the ways
that Afrikaners had faced persecution at home was the erasure of their
history in school textbooks, according to the people with knowledge of
the meeting. The discussion infuriated Democrats, who called the
approach and the consultation “indefensible.”
The State Department did not return a request for comment on the
interaction.
“The administration’s shameful approach to refugee resettlement is
organized around prioritizing white-only Afrikaners and betraying
everyone else, including thousands of Afghan allies who risked their
lives for our nation, and thousands of other approved and vetted
refugees twisting in the wind,” said Democratic Sens. Dick Durbin of
Illinois and Alex Padilla of California, and Democratic Reps. Jamie
Raskin of Maryland and Pramila Jayapal of Washington in a statement.
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President Donald Trump greets South African President Cyril
Ramaphosa, center, at the White House, May 21, 2025, in Washington.
(AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)
Inside the meeting, Democrats also pressed the administration on
religious minorities in other nations, particularly in Iran, and
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan indicated that it was
an issue the administration should look at, the people said. Jordan
raised the case of Saleh Mohammadi, a 19-year-old star wrestler who
was hanged in Iran with two other young men in March after being
sentenced on charges of “moharabeh,” or “waging war against God,”
another person with knowledge of the meeting said.
Thousands of mostly white South Africans already admitted
The State Department has already approved more than 6,000 people
through the refugee program since the beginning of the fiscal year
in October, according to official data. All of those were from South
Africa except for three people from Afghanistan.
Presidents set the cap on how many refugees the U.S. will approve
through the program each year, and historically, they’ve allocated
those numbers across various geographic regions while factoring in
wars or conflicts that spark humanitarian needs around the globe.
The refugee program, administered by the State Department and the
Department of Homeland Security, is distinct from asylum. People
hoping to come through the refugee program must be living abroad and
undergo vetting and other checks before being admitted to the U.S.,
whereas those seeking asylum are already on U.S. soil. A visa,
however, is not a guarantee that the holder will be allowed to enter
the U.S.
During his first administration, Trump slashed the number of
refugees approved every year. Then the Biden administration built
the system back up, setting a goal of admitting 125,000 refugees in
his last year in office.
Groups that have for decades helped resettle refugees in the U.S.
have sued to allow people who were in the refugee application
process but are now stranded to be allowed to come to the U.S.
“For nearly half a century, the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program
embodied a simple but powerful, bipartisan idea: that the United
States would offer safety to the world’s most vulnerable refugees,”
said Beth Oppenheim, President & CEO of HIAS, in a statement. “This
administration is now dismantling that legacy in plain sight."
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