In the fall of 2024, the Department of Homeland Security had employees in dozens of countries, from Peru to Turkey, to vet the most vulnerable and persecuted individuals in the world for potential entry into the United States.
Just one year later, those screeners were working in just one country: South Africa, where the Trump administration has singularly focused U.S. refugee resettlement efforts on the country’s white population.
As of June, all but three of the 7,730 refugees admitted into the U.S. in fiscal 2026 were from South Africa, according to newly released State Department data, an exponential increase from the one South African admitted in the fiscal year before Trump took office.