US plans to admit up to 17,500 refugees, mostly Afrikaners — Jerusalem Post

The administration of US President Donald Trump plans to set a cap of up to 17,500 refugees for the next 12 months. This mainly concerns members of the white ethnic minority of Afrikaners from the Republic of South Africa. This was stated in a US State Department notice sent to Congress, the Jerusalem Post reports.

Cap and cost of resettlement

According to the estimate cited in the notice, resettling people under the proposed cap will cost approximately $500 million. The State Department also expects that Afrikaners from South Africa will fully assimilate in the United States, preserving taxpayer resources for American citizens.

After taking office in January 2025, Trump suspended the admission of refugees to the United States. He said it would be resumed only when it was in the country’s interests. Within several weeks, the administration began efforts to admit Afrikaners.

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Refugee admission data

Trump claimed that Afrikaners face racial persecution in South Africa, where the majority of the population is Black. The South African government denied these claims.

According to State Department data as of August, of nearly 3,000 people admitted by the United States as refugees in the current fiscal year, which ends on September 30, 2026, all but three were South African citizens. By comparison, in fiscal year 2024, Joe Biden’s administration admitted more than 100,000 refugees from dozens of countries.

Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of Global Refuge, said that a program focused on one group and pushing others aside amounts to abandoning global humanitarian leadership and leaves thousands of vulnerable families without support.