US to limit the number of refugees
Shafaq News – Washington
The US Administration decided on Thursday to implement a sharp reduction in the number of refugees allowed to enter the United States starting in the 2026 fiscal year.
Under the new policy, the United States will admit only 7,500 refugees, most of them white migrants from South Africa — a dramatic decrease compared with previous years, when Washington accepted hundreds of thousands of people from around the world.
The new quota marks the lowest refugee ceiling in modern US history. By contrast, former President Joe Biden’s administration had set the annual admissions cap at 125,000 refugees.
Authorities have not provided specific reasons for the decision. However, the Federal Register noted that the incoming refugees would be accepted “for humanitarian reasons or in the national interest.”
In February, Trump signed an executive order to cut financial aid to South Africa after he accused its Black-led government of “unjust racial discrimination” against white Afrikaners, a minority group who are descendants of Dutch and French colonial settlers.
During his first term, in 2020, Trump set a limit of 15,000 refugees for the 2021 fiscal year. The previous year, in 2019, he had already reduced the limit to 18,000 for the 2020 fiscal year.
