BREAKING: Trump administration announces new restrictions on refugee admissions

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From the Associated Press: The Trump administration is restricting the number of refugees it admits into the country to 7,500 and they will mostly be white South Africans, a dramatic drop after the U.S. previously allowed in hundreds of thousands of people fleeing war and persecution from around the world.

The administration published the news Thursday in a notice on the Federal Register.

No reason was given for the numbers, which are a dramatic decrease from last year’s ceiling set under the Biden administration of 125,000. The Associated Press previously reported that the administration was considering admitting as few as 7,500 refugees and mostly white South Africans.

The memo said only that the admission of the 7,500 refugees during 2026 fiscal year was “justified by humanitarian concerns or is otherwise in the national interest.”

CLICK HERE to read a draft of the resolution.  It is scheduled to be officially released on Friday, October 31.

The pro-migrant activist group, Global Refuge, who was previously known as Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS), is already fuming over the order. In a press release, Global Refuge wrote:

The Trump administration is formally announcing a refugee admissions ceiling of just 7,500 people for Fiscal Year 2026 — the lowest in U.S. history — while primarily using those limited slots for Afrikaners from South Africa.

The Presidential Determination, to be published Oct. 31 in the Federal Register, cites Executive Order 14204, which explicitly prioritizes Afrikaners for resettlement, and references other executive orders that restrict refugee entry and narrow eligibility. Global Refuge, one of the nation’s largest refugee resettlement organizations, continued to express grave concern that the new framework represents a profound break from decades of bipartisan policy guided by humanitarian need, not ideology or identity.

The Presidential Determination marks a continuation of policies that have sharply curtailed refugee resettlement since January, when the administration first suspended admissions under Executive Order 14163. Despite ongoing litigation, tens of thousands of refugees who had already undergone exhaustive vetting by the U.S. government remain stranded abroad. Many had sold their belongings, vacated housing, and quit jobs in anticipation of travel that was abruptly halted.

“This decision doesn’t just lower the refugee admissions ceiling. It lowers our moral standing,” said Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, President & CEO of Global Refuge. “For more than four decades, the U.S. refugee program has been a lifeline for families fleeing war, persecution, and repression. At a time of crisis in countries ranging from Afghanistan to Venezuela to Sudan and beyond, concentrating the vast majority of admissions on one group undermines the program’s purpose as well as its credibility.”

While speaking at a Turning Point USA event in Mississippi Wednesday evening, Vice President JD Vance stressed that America has taken in entirely too many immigrants in recent years – even legal immigrants – and said the numbers must come down.

“My job as vice president is NOT to look out for the interests of the whole world. It’s to look out for the people of the United States,” he said.

READ MORE from the Associated Press.

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