The Trump administration has proposed increasing the US refugee admissions ceiling for fiscal year 2026 from 7,500 to 17,500, with all additional places reserved specifically for white Afrikaners from South Africa, according to a State Department plan sent to Congress.
The proposal marks the latest expansion of President Donald Trump’s Afrikaner‑focused refugee programme, introduced shortly after he took office in 2025 through an executive order prioritising the resettlement of European‑descended South Africans on grounds of alleged racial persecution.
The administration has sharply restricted refugee admissions for nearly all other nationalities, with official figures showing that 6,066 of the 6,069 refugees admitted since October 2025 were Afrikaners.
The State Department says an “emergency refugee situation” justifies the increase, citing what it calls escalating hostility towards Afrikaners and a December 2025 raid by South African authorities on a US‑linked processing centre. At the time, South African officials said they had arrested Kenyans who were working at the centre illegally, but the US condemned the raid.
Trump has also pointed to a controversial South African law that could allow the government to seize land in some circumstances when it is deemed to be in the public interest.
The law does not mention the races of affected landowners although white South Africans own a disproportionate share of the country’s land in a vestige of the apartheid system.
Pretoria denies persecuting the minority group and many South Africans – including Afrikaners interviewed by US media – dispute claims of a “genocide,” saying farm murders reflect broader violent crime affecting all communities.
The proposed expansion, estimated to cost around $100 million, requires formal presidential approval but such consultations with Congress have historically been a formality.
JN/APA