The administration’s reported plan to slash refugee admissions to just 7,500 individuals in the next fiscal year will strand thousands of vetted refugees who were waiting to begin new lives in America
A coalition of over 56 national, faith-based organizations is condemning the Trump administration’s reported plan to slash refugee admissions into the U.S. during the next fiscal year to a record low, saying the decision is “abandoning” our commitments to the U.S. refugee program and will leave “tens of thousands of refugees who were already approved for resettlement stranded overseas.”
“Guided by our diverse faith traditions, we share collective alarm that the Trump administration intends to foil the spirit of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program by drastically slashing the program and abandoning refugees fleeing persecution and war,” said the Interfaith Immigration Coalition. Under the reported plan, the administration would cap refugee admissions to just 7,500 individuals – a record-low in the bipartisan program’s storied history. For comparison, 100,034 refugees were resettled in the last final full fiscal year of the Biden administration.
Thousands who had already been approved to begin new lives in the U.S also stand to be left behind, advocates note. “Many had sold their belongings, vacated housing, and quit jobs in anticipation of travel just days or weeks away that was abruptly halted,” Global Refuge said in a separate statement.
This decision to slash admissions “reflects a true abandonment of our nation’s calling to protect those facing persecution—including Christians and Baptists around the world,” said Elket Rodriguez, Interfaith Immigration Coalition member and Global Migration Advocate for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and Faithworks. “Setting refugee admissions to 7,500 is a moral failure as people of faith and a betrayal of who we are as a nation,” said Kristyn Peck, CEO of Lutheran Social Services of the National Capital Area. “For decades, under both Republican and Democratic administrations, our nation has been a beacon of hope for people seeking safety–regardless of faith, race, or country of origin.”
Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner, Director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, said the administration’s slashing of this humanitarian program “violates our moral obligation to protect the vulnerable, and reflects a shameful retreat from our nation’s historic leadership in refugee resettlement.”
“Given our own experiences of persecution and refugeehood, we are acutely aware of how each person admitted can represent a life saved; indeed, as the Talmud teaches, ‘Whoever saves a single life is considered to have saved an entire world,’” Rabbi Pesner said. “As Jews and as Americans, we call on the administration and Congress to reverse course and recommit to a refugee policy rooted in compassion, fairness, and the fundamental dignity of every human being.”
“The new ceiling on refugee admissions would be half the previous record low of 15,000 slots that Mr. Trump set before leaving office in 2020,” as The New York Times reported. “If finalized, the planned cap would be a steep drop from the 125,000 put in place last year under former President Joe Biden,” Reuters said, “and reflect Trump’s restrictive view of immigration and humanitarian protection.”
That is, unless you’re a white Afrikaner. Interfaith Immigration Coalition members, The Times, and Reuters all say that most of the few refugee slots the administration is expected to keep will won’t go to the thousands of refugees who’ve been waiting in line, but instead white South Africans who’ve already been singled out for protection after the administration sought to stop most other refugee admissions at the beginning of this year.
“Mr. Trump has claimed that the South African minority faces racial persecution in its home country, a claim vigorously disputed by government officials there,” The Times said. And while the vetting process for refugees can take up to 36 months, the first Afrikaner arrivals deplaned “on a chartered flight in May, a remarkably quick turnaround given that families from other nations often wait years for their chance to be vetted and brought to the United States,” The Times continued.
“The President’s plan to drastically reduce refugee admissions and prioritize Afrikaners or any other groups other than the most at-risk populations is both a moral failing and a humanitarian catastrophe,” said Rev. Michael Neuroth, Director of the United Church of Christ Office of Public Policy and Advocacy. “If the Trump administration sets the admissions goal for FY26 at an unbelievably low number of 7,500, with majority slots reserved for white South Africans,” said Sister Marie Lucey, OSF, Associate Director of Franciscan Action Network, “thousands of deserving refugees will have been betrayed by the U.S. government.”
From Pope Leo to concerned neighbors on the ground in New Jersey, faith leaders and faith members have been steadily raising their voices in defense of immigrants and refugees. This week, more than 200 clergy, mostly from the Chicago area, signed a blistering letter titled “Jesus is Being Tear Gassed at Broadview.” It’s a response both to chaotic ICE roundups and the tear-gassing of numerous faith leaders as recently as yesterday.
“What Kristi Noem and her ICE agents are doing is immoral. They aren’t arresting criminals; they are arresting our neighbors,” the letter states. “They are tearing families apart. They wait at bus stops to detain children and use them as bait to lure parents from their homes. People of all ages are in hiding, businesses shuttered, and our friends and congregants—the people we have been ordained to serve—are being taken to Broadview in unmarked vans.”
“We accept that following Christ’s example may mean we are mocked and assaulted, opposed and even arrested,” the letter continues. “Jesus has guidance for this as well, saying, ‘Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you.’ If he were living today, we believe he might add ‘pepper spray, body slam and arrest you’ to his beatitude.”
And last month, Pope Leo issued his strongest rebuke against U.S. policy yet, saying that the “inhuman treatment of immigrants” are not in line with the teachings of the Church. “‘Someone who says I am against abortion but I am in agreement with the inhuman treatment of immigrants in the United States, I don’t know if that’s pro-life,’ the pontiff told journalists outside the papal summer residence in Castel Gandolfo, in the Alban Hills, near Rome,” The Guardian reported.
The pope’s criticism of the mistreatment of immigrant communities in the U.S. follows his extensive remarks this past August calling migrants and refugees “messengers of hope” and a “true divine blessing” in a world often “darkened by war and injustice.”
