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US has let in 4,499 refugees since October – all but three were South African
President Donald Trump's overhaul of US refugee policies has created a major shift in the number and nationalities of people admitted to the country, US government data shows.
Since October 2025, 4,499 refugees were resettled in the US, according to the Refugee Processing Center. All, except three from Afghanistan, were South African.
In the last full fiscal year of the Biden administration, which started in October 2023, 125,000 people were accepted from 85 countries.
Last year, Trump halted all refugee admissions, including for applicants from warzones, but allowed Afrikaners, a white minority group he said was persecuted, to seek resettlement. South Africa objected to his characterisation.
US refugee policy for white South Africans is part of a century-long effort to keep some English-speaking nations white
Whiteness appears to be an official immigration credential in the eyes of the United States government.
The Trump administration in late 2025 slashed the annual cap on refugee admissions to 7,500 for budget year 2026, down from the 125,000 cap set in 2024 by the Biden administration. That’s a historic low that will shut out thousands of global refugees from war and persecution, such as the victims of Taliban repression in Afghanistan or the Rohingya minority in Myanmar facing documented mass violence.
The new refugee cap, however, will mostly benefit white South Africans, known as Afrikaners. The State Department is building infrastructure to process 4,500 refugee applications per month from Afrikaners, a pace that would easily exceed the administration’s global cap.
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Nearly 5,000 S.African Afrikaners take up Trump refugee offer
Nearly 5,000 white Afrikaners have entered the United States under a programme launched by President Donald Trump nearly a year ago based on unfounded claims that the South African minority faces persecution, a document seen by AFP on Wednesday showed.
The Trump administration has essentially ended refugee admissions as part of a crackdown on immigration but made an exception for South Africa's white Afrikaans community, descendants of the first European settlers.
All of 4,499 people listed as resettled across 48 US states between October 1 last year and March 31 this year were South Africans except for three Afghans, according to the document from the US Department of State's Bureau of Population.
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