The US has admitted 8,483,499 refugees since October—all but three from South Africa. 11 hours earlier. Mayeni Jones, Africa correspondent in Johannesburg. Reuters. US government data indicates that President Donald Trump’s reforms to refugee policies have significantly altered the volume and origins of individuals admitted to the country. The Refugee Processing Center reports that 4,499 refugees have been resettled in the US since October 2025. All but three Afghans were South African. During the Biden administration’s final full fiscal year, beginning in October 2023, 125,000 individuals from 85 countries were admitted. Last year, Trump suspended all refugee admissions—even from war zones—but permitted Afrikaners, a white minority group he claimed was facing persecution, to pursue resettlement. South Africa took issue with his description. Trump, in revealing the policy shift, stated it would bolster national security and public safety. The announcement specified that priority would go to Afrikaner South Africans and “other victims of illegal or unjust discrimination in their respective homelands.” Diplomatic strains between Washington and Pretoria have intensified since Trump’s return to the White House. Just over a year earlier, South Africa’s US ambassador, Ebrahim Rasool, was expelled after charging Trump with “mobilizing a supremacism” and attempting to “project white victimhood as a dog whistle.” In May, Trump challenged South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in the Oval Office, asserting that white farmers there faced persecution and “genocide.” Ramaphosa rebutted the claims, supported by John Steenhuisen, the white leader of the Democratic Alliance—a key player in the coalition government—who told Trump, “Certainly, the majority of South Africa’s commercial and smallholder farmers really do want to stay in South Africa and make it work.” In October, Pretoria condemned the US move to fast-track refugee claims from white Afrikaners, noting that white genocide allegations have been broadly debunked and lack credible proof. It pointed to an open letter from notable Afrikaner figures—including scholars, executives, and heirs of apartheid leaders—who dismissed the story, with some labeling the resettlement program as racist. The initial batch of 68 South African refugees arrived in the US in May of the previous year. This year, the numbers started rising, with 2,848 people arriving in February and March. They have resettled throughout the US, with the largest number—543—located in Texas. More on the story from the BBC. White South Africans split over US refugee proposal.
