A Historic Reversal of US Policy

NAIROBI, KENYA – Friday, 31 October 2025, 5:00 AM EAT – The Trump administration has announced a drastic reduction of the United States' refugee admissions ceiling to a historic low of 7,500 for the 2026 fiscal year, a move detailed in a notice published in the Federal Register on Thursday. This represents a staggering 94% cut from the 125,000 ceiling set by the previous Biden administration for fiscal years 2024 and 2025.

In a highly controversial policy shift, the notice specifies that the limited spots will be allocated "primarily" to Afrikaner South Africans and "other victims of illegal or unjust discrimination in their respective homelands." The administration claims the decision is "justified by humanitarian concerns or is otherwise in the national interest," a rationale that refugee advocates have fiercely contested.

Resettlement Hopes Dashed for East African Refugees

The impact of this policy reverberates acutely across East Africa, particularly in Kenya, which hosts one of the world's most protracted refugee situations. As of May 2025, Kenya was home to 853,074 refugees and asylum-seekers, predominantly from Somalia and South Sudan, with large populations concentrated in the Dadaab and Kakuma camps. For decades, the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) represented a critical lifeline for the most vulnerable among them.

Under the new cap, resettlement slots for refugees from the entire African continent—previously allocated between 30,000 and 50,000 spots for FY2025—are now virtually eliminated. This effectively freezes the resettlement pipeline for thousands of families who have undergone years of rigorous vetting by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and U.S. authorities. "This decision doesn't just lower the refugee admissions ceiling. It lowers our moral standing," Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president of the resettlement agency Global Refuge, stated, adding that concentrating admissions on one group undermines the program's purpose.

Diplomatic Fallout with South Africa

The prioritisation of white South Africans follows a period of escalating diplomatic tension between Washington and Pretoria. In February 2025, President Trump signed an executive order to suspend most U.S. foreign aid to South Africa, citing the country's land expropriation laws and its genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. The order explicitly included provisions to assist "Afrikaner refugees escaping government-sponsored race-based discrimination." The South African government has vehemently denied these claims, with President Cyril Ramaphosa defending the land laws as a just and constitutional process.

The first group of Afrikaner refugees arrived in the U.S. in May 2025, marking a departure from the standard UNHCR referral process. This policy was reportedly influenced by allies of the administration who have condemned South Africa's policies as discriminatory. The fallout also allegedly led to the expulsion of South Africa's ambassador to Washington, Ebrahim Rasool, after he accused the administration of mobilising supremacism.

A Drastic Departure from Historical Norms

The new ceiling of 7,500 marks the lowest in the history of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, which was formally created in 1980. It shatters the previous record low of 15,000 set by the first Trump administration for fiscal year 2021. In contrast, the Biden administration admitted over 100,000 refugees in fiscal year 2024, the highest level in three decades. Before 2017, the average annual cap under both Republican and Democratic administrations was approximately 95,000.

The move follows an executive order signed by President Trump on his first day of his second term, which suspended the entire refugee program, citing national security and resource concerns. Humanitarian organisations have condemned the new policy, with the International Refugee Assistance Project stating it makes "painfully clear that the Trump administration values politics over protection." For the hundreds of thousands of refugees in Kenya and across Africa, the decision represents the closure of a vital pathway to safety and a new life.