Trump raises refugee cap to admit more white South Africans

President Trump on Tuesday formally raised the refugee cap to allow the admittance of another 10,000 individuals — slots he said must be given to white Afrikaners in South Africa.

In doing so, Trump declared an emergency over a matter the South African government has long denied — that the country’s white minority is facing “racially motivated violence.”

The adjustment comes to what was otherwise the lowest refugee cap in the history of the program, with Trump in October determining the U.S. should accept just 7,500 refugees.

Tuesday’s move cements the highly unusual decision to prioritize refugees from just one country.

The Refugee Council, which helps resettlement refugees, criticized the decision in a statement, arguing the administration “has corrupted the U.S. resettlement program for a harmful ideological agenda that violates our moral call to welcome and our legal obligations under U.S. law.”

“A resettlement program that admits only one population at the exclusion of tens of thousands of refugees at risk around the world does not constitute meaningful refugee protection,” it said. “The United States is abandoning Burmese, Rohingya, and Sudanese families fleeing brutal regimes........

© The Hill