Most of the refugees the United States admits next fiscal year will be white South Africans, the Trump administration informed Congress on Tuesday.
The State Department informed lawmakers that the refugee cap would increase from 7,500 to 17,500 starting in October, according to a notice first reported by CNN. The department will admit “primarily” Afrikaners, people of mostly European descent who President Donald Trump says are being oppressed for being white in what he has called a genocide.
The U.S. has widely denied entry to refugees from the rest of the world since the beginning of Trump’s second term. The efforts to prioritize Afrikaners have sparked intense diplomatic friction with the South African government and other international bodies. As of September, all but three of the 12,904 refugees admitted into the U.S. in fiscal year 2026 were from South Africa — a massive increase from the one South African admitted in the fiscal year before Trump took office.
Last week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio barred South African officials accused of race-based discrimination from entering the United States, claiming they have “not adequately addressed” the administration’s concerns about racially motivated crime against Afrikaners.
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