US refugee resettlement remains frozen, but not for white South Africans

After successful interviews with the United States (US) Homeland Security in August 2024, Takang Enoh, a Cameroonian refugee in Nigeria, was approved for resettlement, alongside his wife and daughter, within the next four to five months.

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'I can’t even describe how it felt, but I was so happy that I shed tears at the thought of starting a new life with my family,' Enoh told FairPlanet. 

That never happened because in January 2025, President Donald Trump suspended the refugee admissions programme, citing concerns that the entry of refugees could be detrimental to the US.

'When we heard about resettlement, there was hope. But the fact that the US gave us hope and later shut the door against us was more painful than fleeing war in Cameroon,' 52-year-old Enoh said. 

Yet while the broader refugee admissions programme remains frozen more than 18 months later, the US has continued to admit Afrikaners, a white ethnic minority in South Africa, through a separate pathway created weeks after Trump’s restrictive policy took effect. 

About 6,500 of them were admitted between October 2025 and April 2026. Further, in May 2026,  Trump announced plans to resettle 10,000 more this year. 

‘It doesn’t fit’

The US has long been one of the largest resettlement countries, admitting over 105,000 of the 188,000 refugees resettled globally in 2024. In an online interview with FairPlanet, Susan Fratzke, a senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, explained that, historically, the US refugee admissions programme has been driven by two factors: humanitarian needs identified by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and foreign policy interests. 

'This [Afrikaner admission] is completely different because it doesn't fit in either of those categories. There's no foreign policy interest for the US to be resettling white South Africans, and there's also no real humanitarian need there as well,' Fratzke said. 

Among those left behind is Abane Tikor, a Cameroonian refugee in Nigeria who had completed nearly every stage of the US resettlement process, except for medical screening, before Trump's order took effect. 

In 2023, he and his family fled a refugee camp in Nigeria after repeated attacks by members of the host community, relocating to an area near the Cameroonian border in southern Nigeria’s Cross River State. 

‘I feel sad every day, not for myself, but for my children, whose safety and future are not guaranteed,’ Tikor told FairPlanet. According to the 39-year-old, who now works as a farm labourer, his family has continued to face violent attacks and exploitation in the border area where they sought safety. 

‘I’ve been beaten, and my house attacked several times. Sometimes when I work on farms, people refuse to pay me, but I can’t do anything because this is my life since resettlement has failed,’ Tikor said. 

Since 2016, conflict between Cameroonian government forces and Anglophone separatists has killed more than 6,500 people and displaced over a million others within and outside the country. When refugees like Tikor are no longer safe in their country of asylum, they may be referred by UNHCR to be resettled. 

Trump has repeatedly claimed Afrikaners face a white genocide, a claim rejected by the South African government, which says violent crime affects all South Africans. While some white farmers have been killed, officials in the country note that Black Farmers have been killed in greater numbers. Trump’s decision to admit Afrikaners has fuelled debate over whether these people meet the criteria for refugee resettlement.

'States can resettle anyone they wish for whatever reason they wish,' James Hathaway, an expert in international refugee law at the University of Michigan Law School, told FairPlanet in an email response. 'But the claim that Afrikaners as a group are inherently worthy of refugee status as a basis for resettling them to the US does not make any sense — it is a departure from past practice.’

Human cost of the policy

Before Trump’s policy took effect, more than 120,000 refugees had received conditional approval to be resettled in the US. According to Fratzke, among them are those who are still in the pipeline from the first Trump administration.

'The human consequences of the policy are really tough. These are individuals who had prepared themselves mentally and emotionally to travel to the US. Some of them may have had family in the United States and were, in some cases, very close to departure. Many of them have been waiting for years and years,' Fratzke said. 

‘My mum and two siblings were approved to join me, but it’s been impossible for them to get here,’ Angelina Deng, a 23-year-old South Sudanese refugee resettled in the US from Kenya’s Kakuma refugee camp in 2024, told FairPlanet in a phone interview. 

‘It’s a challenge for me; I miss them and wish these changes by the government didn’t happen.’ 

International responsibility sharing

This year, UNHCR estimates that resettlement needs exceed 2.5 million people this year, with refugees in Africa and Asia accounting for the largest numbers. While this marks a slight decrease from 2025 when figures stood at nearly 2.9 million, Trump’s policy is reshaping the global resettlement system and increasing pressure on other countries to absorb those left behind.

‘The international refugee protection system rests on resettlement and asylum,’ Basak Yavcan, head of research at the Migration Policy Group, told FairPlanet during a virtual interview. 

The expert noted that countries like Canada and the UK are reducing refugee admissions, but the reduction in US admissions stands apart because of its scale. 

Yavcan attributed the trend to a combination of factors, including more restrictive migration policies, financial pressures and cuts to humanitarian aid, and governments increasingly prioritising border management over refugee resettlement.

'Dim times'

With legal pathways disappearing, Yavcan warned that more people may be pushed towards irregular migration routes, resulting in consequences that extend beyond refugees who lose access to protection. 

'Policymakers are increasingly concerned about smuggling networks and dangerous crossings, but at the same time they are reducing the legal pathways available to people in need of protection. This leaves many with few alternatives,' Yavcan said.

As global displacements continue to rise due to conflict and other crises, she warned that restricting legal pathways could deepen humanitarian risks, particularly for women and children who are often most vulnerable to exploitation along irregular routes.

'These are very dim times for international responsibility sharing,' she said. 

For Enoh, the consequences of the US blanket policy are no longer theoretical. Although he and his family were eventually resettled in the UK in February 2026, after going through a fresh application process, he said many refugees he met during the resettlement process, including Tikor, remain stranded.

'Many vulnerable refugees cannot return home, even if the issues that made them leave are addressed. Resettlement is their only hope,' Enoh said.