Policy

Closing the Door to New Americans

The federal government slashed the annual cap of refugee intake to the United States by 94 percent last year.

Matt Welch | From the April 2026 issue

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(Illustration: Joanna Andreasson Source images: Wikimedia)

"I'm proud of the fact," White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller told Fox News in December, that "President Trump has stopped all refugee resettlement into the country. The only refugee resettlement that is happening are the Afrikaners being persecuted in South Africa."

Oval Office pride vis-à-vis refugees used to flow in the opposition direction. "We lead the world," Ronald Reagan bragged in his last speech as president, "because, unique among nations, we draw our people—our strength—from every country and every corner of the world.…If we ever closed the door to new Americans, our leadership in the world would soon be lost."

In October 2025, the Trump administration slammed the door shut to the world's most miserable, slashing the annual cap of refugee intake by 94 percent, to an all-time low of 7,500. Even the COVID-19 years of 2020–2021 averaged more, at 11,600, than this cap would allow. In the year that Reagan left office, the U.S. brought in more than 107,000 refugees.

America is choking off........

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