Trump administration limits refugee admissions to lowest on record

The Trump administration dramatically slashed the refugee admissions cap for the new fiscal year starting this month at 7,500, the lowest on record, according to a Federal Register memo posted Thursday

The Trump administration dramatically slashed the refugee admissions cap for the new fiscal year starting this month at 7,500, the lowest on record, according to a Federal Register memo posted Thursday.

The memo, dated Sept. 30, said the admissions numbers “shall primarily be allocated among Afrikaners from South Africa,” a white ethnic minority group that controlled South Africa during apartheid, as well as "other victims of illegal or unjust discrimination in their respective homelands."

The admissions allocation focus on white Afrikaners expands on Trump’s commitment in an executive order this year to resettle what he described as “Afrikaner refugees escaping government-sponsored race-based discrimination, including racially discriminatory property confiscation," even as he paused refugee admissions.

The new refugee cap is a dramatic shift from the Biden administration's 125,000 target for refugees and a marked decline from the record low cap of 15,000 refugees in Trump's first administration. The notice said the new ceiling "is justified by humanitarian concerns or is otherwise in the national interest."

The average ceiling for refugees for both Democratic and Republican administrations has historically hovered at 95,000.