Trump will reduce the refugee admission program with an exception for Afrikaners
The administration of US President Donald Trump plans to lower the cap on refugee admissions to the United States to 7.5 thousand people in the coming year, which will be a record low. As The New York Times reported on October 3, most of the seats will be reserved for white Afrikaners from South Africa and other categories who, according to the administration, face "unfair discrimination."
The new limit, according to the publication, actually closes the way for thousands of families from camps around the world awaiting resettlement. For comparison, the administration of former US President Joe Biden set the ceiling at 125,000 people last year.
"Such a low ceiling would violate America's promise to people who played by the rules," said HIAS agency president Mark Hatfield.
He also noted that due to funding cuts, the organization has already had to cut more than half of its staff.
According to him, Trump's decision "kicks out of the queue" those refugees who have been waiting for resettlement for years, and undermines the international authority of the United States.
A separate exception has been made for South African Afrikaners: the first groups have already arrived in Alabama, New York, North Carolina and other states, while tens of thousands of refugees from Congo, Sudan and Iran remain in limbo.
The new limit is almost twice as low as the previous record low of 15,000 places set by Trump in 2020, and marks a further curtailment of the traditional American refugee resettlement program.
Earlier, on September 2, the US Federal Appeals Court declared illegal Donald Trump's use of the Foreign Enemies Act to deport alleged members of Venezuelan gangs. The court has blocked the use of this measure in several southern states, and the president himself intends to appeal to the Supreme Court.
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