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.
The new action follows the South African-born Elon Musk's frequent criticism of the country's land ownership laws against white farmers when he was advising Trump this year in the Department of Government Efficiency.
In his criticism, Musk has highlighted the passage of President Cyril Ramaphosa's Expropriation Act, which allows the government to seize private property, at times without compensation, 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 its resettlement effort while it barred refugees from most other countries, including Afghanistan, Sudan, the Republic of Congo and Myanmar.
Trump’s executive order this year also ended U.S. aid to South Africa, much of which is funneled into the country’s HIV/AIDS program, accusing the South African officials of “confiscating land” from minority farmers “and treating certain classes of people very badly.”
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, have criticized Trump for the move, saying the new cap was announced without consultation with Congress.
“This bizarre presidential determination is not only morally indefensible, it is illegal and invalid," they said in a statement Thursday. "The Administration has brazenly ignored the statutory requirement to consult with the House and Senate Judiciary Committees before setting the annual refugee admissions ceiling. That process exists to ensure that decisions of such great consequence reflect our nation’s values, our humanitarian commitments, and the rule of law, not the racial preferences or political whims of any one president."
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday about Democrats' contention that the move was illegal.
Shawn VanDiver, the president and chairman of AfghanEvac — a California-based coalition that has helped Afghans resettle in the U.S. — said the cap "is an unprecedented dismantling of America’s refugee program and a moral collapse that abandons the very allies who stood shoulder to shoulder with our troops."
