The Trump administration is weighing a sharp expansion of the refugee programme reserved for white South Africans, potentially more than doubling the annual ceiling, according to a Reuters exclusive published on 23 April 2026. Three people familiar with the internal discussions told the news agency that the existing 7 500-place cap for the 2026 fiscal year could be raised by as much as 10 000 places, deepening a diplomatic rupture between Pretoria and Washington.
The proposal lands at a politically charged moment. The United States has already admitted about 4 500 South Africans as refugees in the first six months of the fiscal year, on pace to exceed the current cap even before any expansion.
What the white South Africans refugee expansion actually proposes
The programme traces back to an executive order Trump signed in February 2025 that prioritised the resettlement of “European-descended Afrikaners” on the claim that they face race-based persecution.
The South African government and independent researchers have consistently rejected that claim.
A State Department spokesperson would neither confirm nor deny the expansion discussions.
“If the president decides to raise the FY 2026 refugee admissions cap, he will do so at the appropriate time, and any numbers discussed at this point are only speculation,” the spokesperson told Reuters.
How Pretoria has responded
Presidency spokesperson Vincent Magwenya has previously described Trump’s persecution framing as “being speculative”, Reuters reports.
President Cyril Ramaphosa, speaking earlier this year, pushed back on the underlying premise and said the small number of South Africans who had already resettled in the US would “be back soon”.
The Department of International Relations and Cooperation (Dirco) has maintained a more formal line.
Dirco has stated that “the foundational premise of this order lacks factual accuracy and fails to recognise South Africa’s profound and painful history of colonialism and apartheid.”
Dirco has also argued that it is ironic for the order to offer refugee status to a group that remains among the most economically privileged in South Africa while vulnerable applicants from other parts of the world are being deported.
Why this matters for South Africa
The practical effect of the expansion is twofold. It entrenches the programme as a permanent feature of US immigration policy, with the associated vetting and adjudication infrastructure.
It also locks in a diplomatic fault line with Pretoria on top of an already strained agenda covering G20 participation, the Agoa trade preferences review and a US tariff investigation into 60 countries including South Africa.
Research by local think tanks has repeatedly found no basis for the “white genocide” narrative that frames the US programme.
Police statistics show farm attacks form a small share of overall violent crime in South Africa, which disproportionately affects Black and poor communities.
Reuters reports that the refugee ceiling proposal would require a presidential determination, which Trump typically signs toward the start of the fiscal year. A formal announcement could come at any time, given that admissions are already running ahead of the existing cap.
