05/28/2026
This week, the Trump administration published an Emergency Presidential Determination on Refugee Admissions for Fiscal Year 2026, which directs the admission of up to 10,000 more white South Africans as refugees this fiscal year. The Trump administration previously set a historic low cap of 7,500 refugee admissions, and has transformed the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) to serve almost exclusively white Afrikaners while excluding refugees who have been waiting for years to safely resettle in the United States. This includes more than 120,000 refugees who were conditionally approved for resettlement when President Trump suspended USRAP in January 2025 and more than 12,000 refugees who already had travel booked at the time of the suspension.
The International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP) is challenging the U.S. government’s failure to keep its promise to long-waiting refugees and the Trump administration’s brazen rejection of Congress’s explicit mandates to support family reunification, religious minorities, and Iraqi refugees. On April 7, 2026, IRAP moved to amend its class action lawsuit, first filed after the suspension of USRAP, to challenge the administration’s blatantly racist and illegal approach to refugee admissions and its abandonment of the country’s commitment to pathways to safety that are not subject to political whim.
