By Ted Hesson and Nellie Peyton
WASHINGTON/JOHANNESBURG, Feb 26 (Reuters) – The U.S. aims to process 4,500 refugee applications from white South Africans per month, far above President Donald Trump’s stated refugee program cap, and is installing trailers on embassy property in Pretoria to support the effort, a U.S. contracting document said.
The new target, contained in a previously unreported document from the U.S. State Department dated January 27, signals a push to ramp up admissions from South Africa, while refugee applications from other areas have been severely curtailed.
Trump has said the U.S. would only admit 7,500 total refugees from around the world in fiscal year 2026, while a much higher cap of 40,000 to 60,000 was discussed internally last year. Only 2,000 white South Africans had entered the U.S. as refugees as of January 31 under a program launched in May 2025, although the pace has picked up in recent months.
The ambitious target could also face administrative delays in Washington, which in recent weeks have halted all refugee travel to the U.S., including white South Africans, according to a U.S. official familiar with the matter.
The U.S. State Department and Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment. The White House referred questions to the State Department.
The South African Chamber of Commerce in the U.S. said last year that more than 67,000 people had expressed interest in relocating.
Trump ordered a halt to refugee admissions into the U.S. after taking office in 2025 as part of his crackdown on legal and illegal immigration. But weeks later, he launched an effort to bring in white South Africans of Afrikaner ethnicity as refugees, saying they had been violently persecuted in the majority-Black country. South Africa’s government has rejected that claim, while some refugee advocates have criticized the Trump policy.
U.S. SEES URGENT NEED FOR REFUGEE PROCESSING SITE
The contracting document, posted to a U.S. government database on Wednesday, explains the rationale for awarding the contract for the trailers without a competitive bidding process, stressing an urgent need for a secure site.
An immigration raid by South African authorities on a previous U.S. refugee processing site on a commercial property in Johannesburg had forced the government to consider a more secure location, it said, after “operations were compromised.”
“The inability to safely process about 4,500 applicants per month, an objective communicated to (the U.S. State Department’s refugee division) from the White House, would result in failure to meet a Presidential priority,” the document said.
South African Foreign Ministry spokesperson Chrispin Phiri said his government would not interfere with the U.S. program if it remained within legal boundaries, while reiterating Pretoria’s rejection of Trump’s claims about white South Africans.
“The assertion that Afrikaners face systemic persecution is fundamentally unsubstantiated,” he said.
Whether the U.S. could reach the ambitious 4,500 per month target remains unclear. The State Department last week canceled all refugee travel – including for South Africans – from February 23 to March 9 due to operational factors, an email sent to applicants said.
Because of Trump’s sweeping refugee ban issued in January 2025, South Africans must be admitted as exceptions on a case-by-case basis by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
The U.S. official, who requested anonymity to discuss internal operations, said DHS had delayed the approvals, creating an administrative backlog.
Prior to the pause on admissions, South African entries had been ramping up, with about 1,500 admitted in December and January, compared with about 500 in the previous six and a half months, according to U.S. State Department figures.
AFTER PUBLIC U.S.-SOUTH AFRICA TENSIONS, A PRIVATE AGREEMENT
Tensions between the U.S. and South Africa over the refugee effort boiled over in mid-December when South African authorities raided the commercial building in Johannesburg where U.S. staff and contractors were working on refugee cases.
Seven Kenyans working as contractors for a U.S.-based refugee group were arrested for alleged violations of their visa terms, while two U.S. refugee officers were briefly detained.
U.S. and South African officials reached an agreement during a closed-door meeting in late December to allow processing to continue, Reuters reported last month.
The contracting document said a South African company had received a no-bid $772,000 contract to supply and install 14 prefabricated modular buildings as part of a “temporary modular village” on an embassy property in Pretoria.
In a WhatsApp group for South Africans to share information about the program, one applicant said they had an interview this week in a trailer-like structure at an embassy property and that more trailers were being prepared, suggesting the site was now operational.
(Reporting by Ted Hesson in Washington and Nellie Peyton in Johannesburg; Additional reporting by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Don Durfee and Edmund Klamann)
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