President Donald Trump’s refugee policy overhaul has dramatically reshaped who is being admitted into the United States, with official figures showing that 4,499 refugees have been resettled since October 2025 and all but three were from South Africa.
According to the Refugee Processing Center, only three of those admitted were from Afghanistan, while the remaining 4,496 were South Africans.
The figure marks a sharp contrast to the final full fiscal year under former President Joe Biden, which began in October 2023 and saw about 125,000 refugees from 85 different countries admitted into the US.
Trump had suspended refugee admissions last year, including for people fleeing conflict zones, but created an exception for Afrikaners, a white minority group in South Africa whom he claimed faced persecution. South African authorities strongly rejected that description.
While unveiling the new approach, Trump said the policy would help boost national security and public safety.
Priority was to be given to Afrikaner South Africans and “other victims of illegal or unjust discrimination in their respective homelands”, according to an announcement.
The refugee decision has further strained relations between Washington and Pretoria, with tensions escalating since Trump returned to office.
More than a year ago, South Africa’s ambassador to the US, Ebrahim Rasool, was expelled after accusing Trump of “mobilising a supremacism” and trying to “project white victimhood as a dog whistle”.
The disagreement intensified again in May during a White House meeting between Trump and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. Trump insisted that white farmers in South Africa were facing persecution and even “genocide”.
Ramaphosa rejected the claims and was supported by John Steenhuisen, the white leader of the Democratic Alliance, a party that forms part of South Africa’s coalition government.
“Certainly, the majority of South Africa’s commercial and smallholder farmers really do want to stay in South Africa and make it work,” Steenhuisen told Trump.
In October, the South African government criticised Washington’s decision to prioritise white Afrikaners for refugee resettlement, arguing that allegations of a white genocide had been repeatedly debunked and were unsupported by credible evidence.
It also pointed to an open letter signed by well-known Afrikaners, including academics, business figures and descendants of apartheid-era leaders, rejecting the claims. Some of the signatories described the relocation programme as racist.
The first batch of 68 South African refugees arrived in the US in May last year. Arrivals rose significantly this year, with 2,848 people entering the country during February and March alone.
The refugees have been settled across different states, with Texas hosting the largest number at 543.
