On this {photograph} taken on September 2, 2025, Afghan refugee woman Shayma is pictured throughout an interview with AFP at her residence in Islamabad. Her household had been scheduled to fly to the U.S. in February, earlier than the Trump administration suspended most refugee admissions.
Farooq Naeem/AFP by way of Getty Photos
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Farooq Naeem/AFP by way of Getty Photos
The Trump administration is drastically chopping the variety of refugees it should admit to the U.S., capping it at 7,500 for the present fiscal yr. That is the lowest because the U.S. refugee program was established in 1980.
The U.S. needs to primarily admit Afrikaners from South Africa, based on a notification within the Federal Register filed on Thursday, and “different victims of unlawful or unjust discrimination of their respective homelands.”
The administration has largely paused the U.S. refugee resettlement program to this point this yr, except for a streamlined strategy of resettlement for white South Africans. A number of hundred from the group have been resettled throughout the U.S. since March.
In response, some resettlement teams have been fast to voice concern over the shortage of assets and limits on admission of these from different nations. Others have shuttered their providers, altering the panorama of the refugee resettlement course of.
Thursday’s notification, which covers the fiscal yr that began October 1, doesn’t present a cause for the decrease cap, past mentioning earlier Trump administration insurance policies on refugees, together with pausing admissions total and barring admissions from nations seen as threats to U.S. safety and welfare.
“The Trump administration has lengthy expressed its intention to finish Biden’s abuse of the refugee program,” a Trump administration official stated in a press release. “No refugees will probably be admitted in [fiscal year] 26 till the suitable consultations with Congress are held, that are being delayed as a result of sure members of Congress insisted on shutting down the federal government.”
Christopher Landau, the deputy secretary of state, beforehand informed reporters that standards for bringing in refugees included ensuring that they didn’t pose a nationwide safety problem and might be simply assimilated.
“This choice would not simply decrease the refugee admissions ceiling. It lowers our ethical standing,” Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president of International Refuge, stated in a press release. “At a time of disaster in nations starting from Afghanistan to Venezuela to Sudan and past, concentrating the overwhelming majority of admissions on one group undermines this system’s goal in addition to its credibility.”
The Biden administration had set the refugee cap at 125,000 for fiscal yr 2025.
Senate Democrats, together with Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), the highest Democrat on the Senate International Relations Committee, stated the Trump administration disobeyed the legislation by not consulting with Congress on the refugee cap earlier than imposing it.
The administration’s lack of session “demonstrates its tacit acknowledgement that this choice is indefensible,” they wrote in a press release. “President Trump’s transfer undermines the position that America has lengthy performed on this planet as a beacon of stability and a refuge for these fleeing genocide, political persecution and struggle crimes.”
Push for greater caps
Refugee advocates have spent the yr pushing for a broader vary of admissions past Afrikaners, together with admitting folks from different nations who had already been vetted to reach within the U.S.
“It’s egregious to exclude refugees who accomplished years of rigorous safety checks and are presently caught in harmful and precarious conditions,” stated Sharif Aly, president of the Worldwide Refugee Help Venture. He stated that the variety of these with confirmed journey plans to the U.S. is bigger than the brand new refugee cap.
The admission of Afrikaners to the U.S. has drawn scrutiny from resettlement companies within the U.S., who’ve confronted sharp price range, useful resource, and personnel cuts since President Trump took workplace.
Amongst his first govt actions, Trump paused the refugee resettlement program. Numerous companies together with the State Division have additionally paused disbursing funding for vital providers for different refugees, akin to the house, job and college help the Afrikaners are poised to obtain.
The pause additionally despatched the refugee resettlement companies into turmoil as refugees already cleared to reach within the U.S. obtained discover their flights had been cancelled.
Amongst these left in limbo had been Afghans who labored with the U.S. army, a transfer that some Republicans have criticized. A lower-court decide had ordered the federal government to no less than resume the refugee program for individuals who had already been authorised to journey, however an appeals court docket dominated in favor of the administration.
The discover within the Federal Register makes no point out of Afghans, regardless of previous guarantees to assist those that supported the U.S. in America’s longest struggle.
—NPR’s Michele Kelemen contributed to this report.
