By Ted Hesson
WASHINGTON, May 26 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump increased the refugee admissions ceiling by 10,000 for this year to allow more white South Africans to come into the country, a signed presidential determination reviewed by Reuters showed.
The document, dated May 21, said white South Africans of Afrikaner ethnicity face an emergency situation due to the “incitement of racially motivated violence” by the government and political parties in the majority-Black country.
Trump, a Republican, froze refugee admissions from around the world when he took office in January 2025, but weeks later launched a program exclusively aimed at bringing in white South Africans. The effort – which prioritized white refugees while shunning thousands of others from Africa, Asia and elsewhere – was part of a broader challenging of humanitarian norms around refugee protection.
The Trump administration has admitted only three non-South African refugees this fiscal year, government figures show.
SOUTH AFRICA REJECTS PERSECUTION CLAIMS
South African foreign ministry spokesperson Chrispin Phiri, in response to a Reuters request for comment, rejected the assertion that European-descended Afrikaners face danger and discrimination.
“The assertion that white Afrikaners, in particular, endure systemic persecution is entirely without foundation,” Phiri told Reuters in a statement.
The White House document did not list specific examples of South Africa’s government allegedly inciting racial violence.
A State Department spokesperson declined to confirm the 10,000-person increase to the refugee cap but said the program was a Trump priority and that the president would determine refugee levels.
Trump initially set the refugee ceiling at a record-low 7,500 for fiscal year 2026, which ends on September 30. But his administration had already brought in 6,000 white South Africans through the end of April, government figures show.
Trump’s decision to increase the number of refugee admissions brings the total ceiling to 17,500.
Reuters first reported the planned refugee program expansion in April.
REFUGEE PROGRAM PROCEEDS DESPITE TENSIONS
During the apartheid era, which ended with the first democratic elections in 1994, South Africa maintained a racially segregated society with separate schools, neighborhoods and public facilities for people classified as Black, white, Asian or colored, a term for certain mixed-race people in South Africa.
Blacks make up 81% of South Africa’s population, according to 2022 census data. Afrikaners and other white South Africans constitute 7% of the population.
Tensions over the Trump-led refugee effort flared up in December after South African authorities raided a building in Johannesburg where U.S. staff and contractors were processing refugee cases.
After diplomats from both nations held a meeting weeks later, South Africa affirmed that it would allow the U.S. program to continue operating, Reuters reported at the time.
In Trump’s presidential determination expanding the program, he cites “new disruptions” of refugee operations in South Africa as contributing to the urgent need to bring in more Afrikaners.
To emphasize the program, the Trump administration is interested in bringing white South African refugees to the White House for World Refugee Day on June 20, according to a U.S. official and internal government email reviewed by Reuters.
(Reporting by Ted Hesson in Washington; Additional reporting by Nellie Peyton in Johannesburg; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Matthew Lewis)
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