The Trump administration will slash the cap on refugees from 125,000 to 7,500 – a historic low – and give priority to white South Africans
WASHINGTON — As Donald Trump flew back to Washington following his summit meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea, his White House dropped a bombshell.
Just as refugee advocacy groups and other humanitarians had feared, the United States is slamming its doors to people all over the world who hoped to find sanctuary in America from wars, pestilence and persecution.
Confirming well-sourced rumours, the US government says it will accept no more than 7,500 refugees per annum going forwards, an historically low figure that will see the country granting asylum to even fewer displaced people than it did during the lockdowns of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The news was announced without fanfare, and was contained in a notice published quietly in the government’s Federal Register.
In only its third paragraph, it further narrows the options for people trying to flee conflict in Sudan, Gaza or Ukraine.
“The admissions numbers shall primarily be allocated among Afrikaners from South Africa”, decrees the announcement in stark language that essentially rejects a vast array of far more deserving applicants.
Trump’s obsession with keeping America’s doors open to white Afrikaner farmers and their families, is a consequence of disinformation about South African law that has taken immovable root this year in the President’s mind.
A whispering campaign by prominent right-wingers connected with South Africa, has persuaded him that Afrikaners are the victims of genocide, and that the country’s new expropriation law is actively being used to seize white-owned farms without compensation.
In fact, while the law allows for that eventual possibility, not a single farm has been expropriated without compensation by the government of President Cyril Ramaphosa. There is also no evidence of any genocide taking place within South African borders.
Months of efforts by Ramaphosa and other senior figures from South Africa have failed to sway the minds of Trump or his Secretary of State Marco Rubio who, earlier this year, expelled South Africa’s ambassador to Washington.
In May, a first planeload of 59 Afrikaners arrived in the United States, and since then American officials working in South Africa have begun processing more of them.
The Trump administration denies accusations that racism now lies at the heart of US refugee policy.
But Trump has a long history of advocating for most refugees to come from majority white communities.
During his first term, he reportedly asked lawmakers “why are we having all of these people from s**thole countries coming here?” He also reportedly asked why America was failing to attract more refugees from “countries like Norway”, which is more than 90 percent white.
The numbers themselves illustrate his complete reversal of policy, in a country where the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island are still held out as symbols of welcome for – as the poem inscribed afoot Lady Liberty reads – “your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”.
The Biden administration set a cap last year of 125,000 refugees, with no places reserved for Afrikaners. In the final year of his first term, Trump allowed 15,000 refugees to relocate to US shores. Now that number is being halved.
Refugee advocacy groups rushed to condemn the new policy. The Refugee Council USA declared itself “outraged” by Trump’s move, and accused the White House of “violating statutory obligations to consult with Congress” before making its announcement.
“At a time when the world faces the largest displacement crisis in recorded history, with over 123 million people forcibly displaced, this administration’s decision is a catastrophic retreat”, it said.
Global Refuge, the largest faith-based nonprofit assisting refugees in the USA, said the new policy favoring Afrikaners will “jeopardize the credibility” of the country’s refugee programme.
“To drastically lower the admissions cap and concentrate the majority of available slots on one group would mark a profound departure from decades of bipartisan refugee policy”, said Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, the group’s President and CEO.
“We’re hearing from Afghan women’s rights activists, Venezuelan political dissidents, Congolese families, persecuted Christians, and other religious minorities, all of whom now fear there is no room left for them in a system they trusted,” she added.
But the White House is indicating no appetite for negotiation on the matter. Next July 4th, America will celebrate its 250th birthday with a stunning fireworks display exploding above the Statute of Liberty.
Refugees who once coveted the welcome and sanctuary it epitomises, will have to come to terms with the fact that they are unlikely ever to experience it.
