U.S. allocates refugee resettlement slots to a single nationality

New York, NY, October 1, 2026 - The United States announced today that it will primarily resettle people from one country - Afrikaners from South Africa - under a new refugee ceiling of 17,500 for fiscal year 2027. The administration did not allocate resettlement slots to refugees who fled danger from anywhere else in the world.

This limit was established by a Presidential Determination, the legal mechanism used each year to set the refugee ceiling. The determination comes as the January 2025 executive order suspending refugee admissions generally and the 2025 travel bans remain in effect.

"Refugees need America, and America needs refugees," said Hans Van de Weerd, Senior Vice President of Resettlement, Asylum and Integration at the IRC. "The U.S. resettlement program should welcome the world's most vulnerable - Afghans who risked their lives to support the American mission in Afghanistan, persecuted religious and ethnic minorities, and refugees separated from family members left behind in danger. Thousands of people who qualify for protection are being told, in effect, to keep waiting - for years, if not decades - under life-threatening circumstances. Welcoming them isn't just the right thing to do. It strengthens communities, filling critical shortages in healthcare and construction, launching new businesses, and generating taxes that support services all Americans rely on."

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) calls on the U.S. government to end the travel bans and fully restore the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) - strengthening America's workforce, enriching local communities, and reaffirming the nation's foundational commitment to refugees fleeing violence and persecution. Support for refugee resettlement is bipartisan: nearly 70% of likely voters say the United States should maintain a program that welcomes people seeking safety, and more than 70% of voters support resettlement for Afghan citizens who assisted the U.S. mission.

The refugee program has long been one of the clearest expressions of America's bipartisan humanitarian leadership. A study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services found that refugees and asylees generated nearly $124 billion in positive fiscal impact for the U.S. economy over a 15-year period. Refugees resettled before the suspension are already proving the program's value, filling jobs, opening businesses, and rebuilding lives in communities across the country, including:

• A nurse from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, who waited 22 years in Uganda for resettlement, now works as a nursing assistant in Kansas after completing Certified Nursing Assistant training with support from the IRC.
• A South Sudanese refugee mother runs a home-based childcare business in Utah, grown with guidance from the IRC's small business program.
• An Afghan entrepreneur opened a global grocery store in Kansas through savings from his first job at a meat processing plant and a business loan through the IRC. "Refugees are bringing opportunity with them, lots of ideas - many business people are coming," he said.
• A Venezuelan woman is building a health care career in New Jersey, after completing a Home Health Aide certification and pursuing a Medical Assistant certification with help from the IRC, all while mentoring other refugee women.

The decision not to fully restore refugee admissions and lift the travel ban is excluding refugees stranded abroad in precarious circumstances, including:

• An Afghan father and former prosecutor, evacuated to Georgia in 2021, has been separated from his wife and four of his children in Afghanistan for more than five years due to the travel ban - despite an approved family petition.
• A mother in California is separated from her adult son, a member of the ethnic Armenian Christian community in Iran. The refugee resettlement suspension has also separated the man from his fiancée, who resettled just weeks before his travel was canceled.
• A Congolese father resettled to Kentucky in 2024 remains separated from his wife and two young children in a Ugandan refugee camp - their applications frozen since January 2025.
• A refugee couple in Kansas who fled decades of conflict in Somalia remain blocked by the travel ban from reuniting with their three adult children, who were called to Kenya by the U.S. Embassy for visa interviews only to be barred from entry. The family has not been together in over 20 years.