Nick Logan · CBC News

· Posted: Apr 10, 2026 5:46 PM EDT | Last Updated: April 10

President Donald Trump has made good on a promise to drastically cut the number of refugees into the U.S., with white South Africans being the top priority over those fleeing conflict, poverty and other threats to their safety from different countries.

Data from the U.S. State Department's Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) released this week shows just 4,499 people have been admitted as refugees since last October — 4,496 from South Africa and three from Afghanistan.

The Trump administration set a target of 7,500 refugees for the 2026 fiscal year, which began on Oct. 1.

That was down from the 125,000 ceiling for 2025, set by the previous Biden administration, though just over 38,000 — from more than 60 countries — were allowed to enter in the four months before Trump took office and slashed admissions.

Prior to Trump's second term, according to the State Dept. data, only five people from South Africa had arrived to the U.S. as refugees since 2001.

Traditionally, most refugees to the U.S. have come from areas affected by war, violence and widespread human right abuses, including Congo, Myanmar, Venezuela and Afghanistan.

Trump, however, controversially signed an executive order on his first day in office in January 2025 to suspend USRAP and halt refugee arrivals until doing so "aligns with the interests of the United States."

The executive order suggested the U.S. was unable to "absorb" large number of refugees without compromising resources, security and safety and that it would instead only admit those it felt could fully assimilate into the country.

A person holds a protest sign while standing in the terminal at Dulles International Airport on May 12, 2025, the day a plane arrived with the first group of white South Africans granted refugee status for being deemed victims of racial discrimination. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

In February of that year, the White House condemned the South African government for policies that it claimed were "fuelling disproportionate violence" against Afrikaners, a white minority group descended from Dutch and other European settlers.

In an Oval Office meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa that same month, Trump went so far as to make baseless claims of systematic killings of white farmers — accusations Ramaphosa on which pushed back — and showed a debunked video he said was a mass burial site for "over a thousand" white famers.

It was in fact a memorial to two white farmers, a couple who were murdered in 2020. The crosses were put up along the highway on the day of the funeral.

Although white famers have been killed, he majority of farm-related killings are reported to be among predominantly Black workers. In 2025, for example, South African police reported five out of six people killed on farms the first three months of the year were Black, while only one was a white.

Still, the Trump administration launched a program last May to fast-track based on unsubstantiated claims they face race-based discrimination, violence and even genocide at home.

WATCH | Trump lobs accusations in meeting with South Africa's Ramaphosa:

The first 68 white South African refugees arrived last May, with numbers increasing significantly until the end of March, the end of the most recent State Dept. reporting period.

Of the nearly 4,500 people who arrived from South Africa since October, 3,779 landed on U.S. soil in the first three months of this year.

There are around 2.7 million Afrikaners in South Africa's population of 62 million, which is more than 80 per cent Black.

Afrikaners, who were at the heart of South Africa's apartheid system of racial segregation that lasted from 1948 until 1994, are today represented in every facet of life in the country and are successful business leaders, some of the nation's best-known athletes and also serve in government. 

LISTEN | Unpack the throughline connecting apartheid South Africa to the US today: