Slashed refugee cap adds to uncertainty about admissions to US

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration announced a drastic reduction on refugee admissions for fiscal 2026 as part of a tough-on-immigration approach, but a mixture of prior policies, a court challenge and the recent partial government shutdown have added to uncertainty over U.S. policy.

The State Department last month said 7,500 refugees could be admitted during the year, under a proclamation that also makes as the only priority group white Afrikaners from South Africa, who are allegedly facing persecution under a new property confiscation law. That would be the lowest cap since the 1980 law that established the current refugee process.

But the consultations the White House is supposed to have with Congress over the new cap didn’t happen, which the Trump administration said is because of the shutdown that ended last week.

“No refugees will be admitted in Fiscal Year 2026 until the appropriate consultation with Congress is held,” a State Department spokesperson said in a Monday email response to questions.

The new cap would be a sharp decline from a cap of 125,500 refugees set under the Biden administration for fiscal 2025. But it is also more than current refugee admissions, which have been all but shut down since President Donald Trump signed an executive order in January shortly after he took office for his second term.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit heard arguments in September on a lawsuit filed by the International Refugee Assistance Project that argues the abrupt termination in January was unlawful. The court soon could rule against the executive order on the basis it violated laws providing for the admissions of refugees as well as the Fifth Amendment.

Chris Opila, staff attorney at the American Immigration Council, said the new cap has “drastically cut the ceiling” for admissions while limiting the Trump administration’s vulnerability to the legal challenge.

Opila, however, said it’s unclear how the Trump administration will implement refugee policies, including the potential for zero admissions.

“I think there’s uncertainty with what the refugee resettlement will look like in 2026,” Opila said. “Like, how many will we actually have? Seventy-five hundred people resettled? Who will these people be? Will they all be white, South Africans, etc? You know, those are questions that neither the executive order nor the cap itself answer.”

Mevlude Akay Alp, an attorney at the International Refugee Assistance Project, said the new cap is “a really cruel abandonment of thousands of people who were literally on the brink of travel to the United States, as well as tens of thousands who were approved and hundreds of thousands in the pipeline.”

Akay Alp also characterized the new cap and priority announced by Trump last month as “unlawful” because the 1980 law requires the administration brief Congress beforehand on the plans for a refugee cap.

Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, chair of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said the new cap would provide an opportunity to assess “the numbers of people coming in and determine how many we can absorb, how we many can’t,” as well as the impact of refugees on the social welfare system.

“Can people or should people be on food stamps who are refugees?” Paul said. “There have been many reports of refugees coming in who are on food stamps, and I think that all needs to be reassessed.”

Paul said initially “the rules were such” that legal immigrants weren’t eligible for welfare for five years, but many of those rules are “bent for refugees.”

“I think there is a point at which you can have too many,” Paul said. “That being said, I like lawful immigration. I’m for it, but then we have to reassess the numbers. I think that’s reasonable.”

Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, another Republican and member of the Homeland Security panel, said he didn’t immediately have a comment on the new refugee cap, but he suggested comparisons to Biden’s cap of 125,500 is unfair because he’s “not sure they ever got to that number.”

Democratic criticism

Senate Democrats objected to the new cap as additional evidence the Trump administration is hostile to immigrants coming into the United States, which would have serious implications for the country’s global standing.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., a co-sponsor of a bill that intends to supplement a cap by allowing community and religious organizations to take in refugees, said the cap of 7,500 would present a humanitarian concern for those facing persecution.

“I am disappointed that we are going to be turning away refugees seeking asylum from persecution and torture, and this rollback and the refugee cap, I think, will damage our country, as well as create physical harm for countless people who are seeking safety,” Blumenthal said.

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he was “very disappointed” with the new limit in refugees. “It’s just not a reflection of the world that we live in and the role that the U.S. has traditionally played,” Kaine said.

Kaine also suggested the Trump administration was engaging in racism by expressing a preference for admissions of white people from South Africa, questioning why the U.S. government hasn’t offered the same opportunity for Christians in Nigeria despite accusations of genocide against them.

“They’re talking about going to war in Nigeria rather than allow Nigerian Christians to come in as refugees. Hmm, what’s the difference?” Kaine said, stroking his chin.

Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., another member of the Foreign Relation panel, said the cap amounted to “more of this president’s attempts to withdraw America’s leadership role around the world,” predicting the limit would contribute to global instability.

“I said this with the Syrian refugee crisis: We don’t want to leave people to live in refugee camps around the world where they then become future recruits for other terrorist groups, growing the next generation of people who shoot down American helicopters,” Duckworth said. “We don’t want that to happen.”

Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., and a member of the Senate Homeland Security panel, called the cap “wrong.”

“I think that’s our responsibility as a nation to accept refugees. I mean, that’s what the Statue of Liberty always says, right?” Fetterman said.