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WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump’s administration is considering more than doubling an annual refugee limit to bring more white South Africans into the US, according to three people familiar with the matter.
Trump, a Republican, paused refugee admissions from around the world when he took office in January 2025. Weeks later, he issued an executive order prioritizing the resettlement of European-descended Afrikaners, saying they faced race-based persecution in majority-Black South Africa. South Africa’s government vehemently denies the claims. The US Refugee Admissions Programme was formally established in 1980 after hundreds of thousands of people fled wars in Vietnam and Cambodia. The programme expanded to provide safe haven to persecuted people around the globe. Trump has used it almost exclusively to bring white South Africans into the US, part of a broader upending of norms around humanitarian protection.
In recent weeks, US officials have discussed expanding the 7,500-person refugee cap by 10,000 to allow more South Africans of Afrikaner ethnicity to obtain refugee status, said people familiar with internal planning, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share non-public government discussions.
The White House referred questions to the US State Department. On Thursday, Assistant Secretary of State Andrew Veprek said an increase in the refugee limit was being considered, but did not provide details. “We’re looking at the pace of resettlement right now and thinking about how quickly it’s going, and do we need to increase the ceiling for the current fiscal year as well,” he said at an event hosted by the Centre for Immigration Studies, which supports lower levels of immigration.
During the apartheid era, which ended with the first democratic elections in 1994, South Africa maintained a racially segregated society with separate schools, neighborhoods and public facilities for people classified as Black, colored, white or Asian.
Blacks make up 81 per cent of South Africa’s population, according to 2022 census data. Afrikaners and other white South Africans constitute 7 per cent of the population.
