President Donald Trump has fulfilled his promise to significantly reduce the number of refugees entering the U.S., with a particular focus on white South Africans over individuals escaping conflict, poverty, and other dangers from various nations. Recent data from the U.S. State Department’s Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) revealed that only 4,499 refugees have been admitted since October, with 4,496 coming from South Africa and three from Afghanistan.
The Trump administration had set a refugee target of 7,500 for the 2026 fiscal year, starting on October 1. This figure marked a sharp decrease from the 125,000 ceiling set by the previous Biden administration for 2025. Before Trump’s second term, only five refugees from South Africa had entered the U.S. since 2001, as per State Department statistics.
Historically, most U.S. refugees have originated from regions plagued by war, violence, and severe human rights violations like Congo, Myanmar, Venezuela, and Afghanistan. However, Trump’s administration controversially signed an executive order in January 2025 to suspend USRAP and stop refugee arrivals until aligning with U.S. interests. The order argued that admitting a large number of refugees could strain resources, security, and safety, emphasizing the importance of assimilation into American society.
In February of the same year, the White House criticized the South African government for policies allegedly contributing to disproportionate violence against Afrikaners, a white minority group. During a meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, Trump made unsubstantiated claims about systematic killings of white farmers, showing a debunked video purportedly depicting a mass burial site for white farmers.
Although there have been incidences of violence against white farmers, official reports indicate that the majority of farm-related killings in South Africa target predominantly Black workers. Despite this, the Trump administration initiated a program in May to expedite refugee status for white South Africans based on unverified claims of facing discrimination, violence, and potential genocide in their home country.
The first 68 white South African refugees arrived in the U.S. last May, with numbers steadily increasing until the most recent reporting period ending in March. Of the nearly 4,500 arrivals from South Africa since October, the majority, 3,779, landed in the U.S. within the first three months of this year. South Africa’s population of 62 million includes around 2.7 million Afrikaners, constituting more than 80% of the Black-majority population.
Afrikaners, who played a central role in South Africa’s apartheid regime from 1948 to 1994, are now prevalent across various sectors in the country, including business, sports, and government roles.
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