Trump administration sets record-low refugee admission cap, with focus on white South Africans

WASHINGTON (OSV News) -- The Trump administration indicated it would restrict the number of refugees it admits annually into the country to 7,500, with most of that number to be white South Africans.

In Oct. 30 notices posted to the Federal Register and expected to be published Oct. 31, the White House said that only 7,500 refugees would be accepted during the next fiscal year, from October 2025 to September 2026, calling the cap "justified by humanitarian concerns or is otherwise in the national interest."

The notices added that priority will be given to Afrikaner refugees and "other victims of illegal or unjust discrimination in their respective homelands." Afrikaners, a predominately Calvinist group descended from 17th and 18th century Dutch colonizers of southern Africa, were the chief architects and beneficiaries of apartheid, a brutally repressive and racist system of white minority rule over South Africa from 1948 to 1994.

In an Oct. 31 statement, Bishop Mark J. Seitz of El Paso, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on Migration, said the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program for 45 years "has been, and continues to be, a safe and secure legal pathway for people from around the world who meet the requirements for humanitarian protection."

"It is a vital mechanism through which our nation can exist as a beacon of hope for those facing persecution and promote respect for the sanctity of human life," he said.

But Bishop Seitz also called for the president to lift the "broad, indefinite suspension of refugee admissions" and "make the program available to those truly in need."

"What President Reagan said in 1981 about refugee policy being 'an important part of our past and fundamental to our national interest' very much rings true today," he said. "With the Administration signaling a severely limited continuation of this historically bipartisan program, we urge due consideration for all those who have long awaited their opportunity for relief."

Dylan Corbett, executive director of the Hope Border Institute, a group that works to apply the perspective of Catholic social teaching in policy and practice to the U.S.-Mexico border region, told OSV News, "The administration's refugee resettlement goals are unserious and even worse, they are overtly racially biased."

"At a time when the growing reality of human displacement around the world demands creativity and action, the United States is abandoning its leadership role on the protection of refugees and asylum-seekers," Corbett said.

The new cap marks a significant decrease from the previous fiscal year, when President Joe Biden's administration set the cap at 125,000.

Earlier this year, the Trump administration terminated the government's contract with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' refugee resettlement program as part of its broader effort to enforce its hardline immigration policies. It also ended protections for other groups of migrants, such as those from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela -- majority Catholic countries -- as well as Afghanistan.

Bishop Seitz added, "We cannot turn a blind eye to the disparate treatment of refugees currently taking place."

"As exemptions are considered, it is essential that they be applied consistently and without discrimination on the basis of race, religion, or national origin, in accordance with longstanding domestic and international norms," he said. "Resettlement tainted by the perception of unjust discrimination is contrary to Catholic teaching and quintessential American values, grounded in our Constitution and refugee laws, including the equality of every person from the moment of their creation by God."

Trump has previously alleged there is an ongoing "genocide" against white farmers in South Africa, showing videos he claimed showed evidence of such violence during a contentious Oval Office meeting between Trump and that country's president, Cyril Ramaphosa, in May.

However, while South Africa has a relatively high crime rate, there is no evidence that crimes against white farmers are disproportionate, a BBC analysis found. The BBC reviewed data from South African Police Service figures showing there were 26,232 murders in the country in 2024. Of those deaths, 44 were killings of people within the farming community, including Black and white South African victims.

A 2019 country report by the State Department during Trump's first term also disputed that argument, which is sometimes circulated by white nationalist groups.

"Some advocacy groups asserted white farmers were racially targeted for burglaries, home invasions, and killings, while many observers attributed the incidents to the country's high and growing crime rate," the report said, calling those isolated incidents "in line with the general upward trend in South Africa's serious and violent crimes."

At the time, Reuters reported that one of the photos Trump displayed to make his claims was a screenshot of a video it took in Congo in February. A vast distance separates both South Africa and Congo on the African continent, with planes having to cover more than 1,800 miles between the countries' respective capitals.

J. Kevin Appleby, senior fellow for policy at the Center for Migration Studies in New York and former director of migration policy for the USCCB, told OSV News, "The real tragedy here is that thousands of vulnerable refugees around the world will not receive the protection they need."

"The U.S. refugee program, with help from the church nationwide, has saved the lives of millions of people over the decades but now is leaving them stranded and their lives at risk. It is definitely a moral stain on the nation," he said.

Catholic social teaching on immigration balances three interrelated principles -- the right of persons to migrate in order to sustain their lives and those of their families, the right of a country to regulate its borders and control immigration, and a nation's duty to regulate its borders with justice and mercy.

Earlier this year, the USCCB said it would not renew its cooperative agreements with the federal government related to children's services and refugee support after its longstanding partnerships with the federal government in those areas became "untenable."

In his Oct. 31 statement, Bishop Seitz noted that at that time, Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio, president of the USCCB, "emphasized that the decision would not mean the Catholic Church would be walking away from helping refugees and others, but rather, that the USCCB would find other ways to uphold the Gospel's call to do what we can for the least among us."