The Trump administration is going to restrict the number of refugees it admits into the United States next year to the token level of just 7,500 – and those spots will mostly be filled by white South Africans.

The low number represents a dramatic drop after the US previously allowed in hundreds of thousands of people fleeing war and persecution from around the world.

The administration published the news on Thursday in a notice on the Federal Registry.

No reason was given for the drop in numbers, which are a dramatic decrease from last year’s ceiling set under the Biden administration of 125,000.

The Associated Press previously reported that the administration was considering admitting as few as 7,500 refugees and mostly white South Africans.

The government memo said only that the admission of the 7,500 refugees during 2026 fiscal year was “justified by humanitarian concerns or is otherwise in the national interest”.

The figure had previously been reported after documents about the plans were leaked.

The announcement swiftly drew criticism from refugee organizations, with the International Refugee Assistance Project saying: “This determination makes it painfully clear that the Trump administration values politics over protection.”

“By privileging Afrikaners while continuing to ban thousands of refugees who have already been vetted and approved, the administration is once again politicizing a humanitarian program. It is egregious to exclude refugees who completed years of rigorous security checks and are currently stuck in dangerous and precarious situations,” it added.

Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, CEO of the US-based Global Refuge, took issue with the ethics of the decision.

She said: “This decision doesn’t just lower the refugee admissions ceiling. It lowers our moral standing. For more than four decades, the US refugee program has been a lifeline for families fleeing war, persecution, and repression. At a time of crisis in countries ranging from Afghanistan to Venezuela to Sudan and beyond, concentrating the vast majority of admissions on one group undermines the program’s purpose as well as its credibility.”