President Donald Trump’s overhaul of US refugee policies has created a major shift in the number and nationalities of people admitted to the country, US government data shows.
Since October 2025, 4,499 refugees were resettled in the US, according to the Refugee Processing Center. All, except three from Afghanistan, were South African.
In the last full fiscal year of the Biden administration, which started in October 2023, 125,000 people were accepted from 85 countries.
Last year, Trump halted all refugee admissions, including for applicants from warzones, but allowed Afrikaners, a white minority group he said was persecuted, to seek resettlement. South Africa objected to his characterisation.
I’m willing to bet these South African apartheid Nazis will be hired by ICE. I’m willing to bet that that was the plan the entire time.
I’ve been a volunteer with refugee resettlement for years (still doing it because to leave now would hurt our on-going services to real refugees). From what I’ve seen, these are less ICE recruits and more in-line with the replacement theory” ideas. They’re trying to abuse the funds and infrastructure set aside to help deserving refugees and bolster their influx of the “right” kinds of people. And to an extent, it does work. If we didn’t help their refugees, we’d lose funding and support; if we quit in protest the people who came here earlier and are still settling would lose their support.
Most of the ones I’ve met seem more like someone you’d see holding a sign behind Trump at a rally than hardcore Proud Boy. They seem middle class, average education, entitled, resentful, and like they don’t actually need the help of our resettlement program. Most refugees come in with nothing; most of these folks have plenty.
And while it’s a sad statement on society, don’t discount the hate and bigotry of the homegrown MAGAts. They’ve hated refugees for years because they think they get a free ride into what they were born to (or worked hard to get). The whiteness is not an automatic “welcome” even if the politics match. They’re almost as hateful towards any immigrant regardless of color. I overheard one refugee upset because a MAGAt called her a “white n*word”. Welcome to America, land of hate.