Trump Sets Lowest Refugee Cap in History—With Priority to White People

The United States, once a haven for people from all over the world seeking a better life, will only admit 7,500 refugees next year, and most of them will be white South Africans.

The Trump administration’s new limit, published in the Federal Registry Thursday, is much lower than the 125,000-person ceiling set by the Biden administration last year. White House officials have not commented on why the number is so low, but the registry notice states the figure is “justified by humanitarian concerns or is otherwise in the national interest.”

The notice also refers to “victims of unjust or illegal discrimination in their respective homelands.” The only specific ethnic group mentioned in the memo is “Afrikaners from South Africa,” and President Trump has used the term “unjust racial discrimination” to criticize South Africa’s current government. (Actual Afrikaners dispute Trump’s characterization).

Refugee organizations have condemned the move. Global Refuge’s CEO Krish O’Mara Vignarajah said in a statement that the move “doesn’t just lower the refugee admissions ceiling. It lowers our moral standing.

“At a time of crisis in countries ranging from Afghanistan to Venezuela to Sudan and beyond, concentrating the vast majority of admissions on one group undermines the program’s purpose as well as its credibility,” Vignarajah’s statement said.

“By privileging Afrikaners while continuing to ban thousands of refugees who have already been vetted and approved, the administration is once again politicizing a humanitarian program,” said the International Refugee Assistance Project’s president, Sharif Aly.

It’s no secret how much racism influences the Trump administration’s immigration policies. Trump infamously complained about people from “shithole countries” immigrating to the U.S., back in his first term, and baselessly attacked Haitian immigrants during his 2024 campaign, falsely claiming that they cook cats and dogs. That kind of thinking is now replacing the U.S. legacy of welcoming refugees and immigrants from all over the world.

House Speaker Mike Johnson tried to rewrite history Thursday in order to excuse why the Trump administration won’t provide funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program starting in November.

During a press conference, Johnson was asked why the White House wasn’t planning to fund SNAP benefits through the current government shutdown, even though SNAP previously remained funded during the previous one. That one, which lasted for 35 days from 2018-2019 during Donald Trump’s first term, is the longest government shutdown in history.

“The president, this administration has done exactly what it did in the first term, and that is bend over backwards to make sure we mitigate the harm,” Johnson said, adding that Trump had “done everything he can.”

HuffPost reporter Arthur Delaney, who asked Johnson the question, wrote on X shortly after: “I think it’s pretty clear the speaker is just not aware of what happened in 2019.”

Here’s a quick refresher for those of us who, unlike Johnson, weren’t working in Congress at the time. (Johnson was first elected in 2016.) During the government shutdown in January 2019, the Trump administration instructed the U.S. Department of Agriculture to pay out SNAP benefits early, so Americans could receive February benefits. 

Continuing resolutions have historically provided that SNAP funds can be available “payments due on or about the first day of any month” that begins within 30 days after the budget expires, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. As of Thursday, the shutdown has lasted 30 days. 

During the first Trump administration, the Agriculture Department clearly and repeatedly stated that SNAP contingency funds could be used in case of a government shutdown. This was confirmed by the Office of Budget and Management. 

That was seemingly the policy of the second Trump administration as well—until  August 2025, when the USDA published a memo claiming that SNAP contingency funds could not legally be used to cover regular benefits for the 42 million Americans that use them, and that using the contingency funds would prevent additional transfers to the Special Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), which is currently being paid for by tariff money.

It seems that Johnson has been on an all-time streak of not answering questions while he runs defense for Republicans’ disastrous shutdown, taking creative liberties with the truth and refusing to actually govern. 

Chicago’s ICE units will be spending this Halloween masquerading as human beings.

Federal agents will still be patrolling the streets and nabbing undocumented immigrants while children trick or treat across the Windy City, according to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, despite appeals from Illinois Governor JB Pritzker to hold off for the night.

“There is a lot of ICE activity, obviously, in that city … but the governor has asked you specifically to pause immigration enforcement operations in Chicago so he says that kids can safely celebrate Halloween,” said Fox News’s Sandra Smith during a Thursday afternoon interview. “Do you have any plans to alter activity tomorrow on that day?”

“No, we’re going to be out on the streets in full force and increase our activities to make sure that kids are safe,” Noem said. “Every day in Chicago we’re arresting murderers, child pedophiles, those who have perpetuated assault and pornography against children.

“We’re going to be out there to make sure that they can be safe, enjoy the holidays, spend some time with their families and their neighbors in their communities, and they don’t have to be the victim of a crime because of these illegal aliens that are in our country victimizing them,” she added.

If anything, it’s Noem’s immigration officers who are “victimizing” children. On Saturday, federal agents allegedly tear-gassed a group of school-age children in a residential Chicago neighborhood on their way to a Halloween parade.

The Trump administration’s pledge to prioritize violent criminals in their mass deportation scheme has not panned out. ICE agents have been tasked with arresting upward of 3,000 undocumented immigrants a day at Homeland Security adviser Stephen Miller’s direction. That gargantuan figure has largely forced agents to focus on noncriminal immigrants, and has sent them hunting for potential deportees at kids’ sports practices. The unpalatable development has tanked job satisfaction for ICE officials and agents alike, who have reportedly never been so miserable despite constant praise and material bonuses from the White House.

Noem’s hatred for rapists only extends so far, however. She doesn’t seem to have any problem with Donald Trump, who was found liable for sexually abusing Elle columnist E. Jean Carroll, and who maintained a tight-knit relationship with notorious child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein for years.

Meanwhile, ICE’s presence has made some cities across the country significantly less safe. Earlier this month in Portland, Oregon, mistaken friendly fire between federal agents caused officers to escalate their efforts against anti-ICE protesters, resulting in officers firing a barrage of rubber bullets into a crowd that also contained local law enforcement, Portland’s police commander testified Wednesday.

Knowing another language apparently makes you too stupid to drive an 18-wheeler.

At least, that’s what Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem seems to believe. The secretary provided updates on Operation Midway Blitz in Indiana Thursday, boasting that the administration had captured 223 undocumented immigrants that she said had managed to obtain commercial driving licenses in “sanctuary states.”

The roads are apparently safer without them, according to Noem, who continued on to claim that foreigners in tractor trailers posed an “extremely dangerous” threat.

“Putting these foreigners in tractor trailers like the one you see behind becomes extremely dangerous,” Noem said. “I have driven semis over many, many years, and 18-wheelers, and understand they’re difficult to stop, maneuver.”

“You have to have a skillset, but also communication with those around you, and certainly in your training that’s important to make sure you’re operating it safely,” she continued. “Putting them behind the wheel of these tractor trailers, weighing tens of thousands of pounds loaded with explosive fuel, down the highway endangers every single citizen that is on our roads.”

Despite her insistence, it’s unclear just how much experience Noem actually has with these trucks. Noem catalogs several instances in her 2022 book Not My First Rodeo in which she was haphazardly tasked with operating a semi while working on her family ranch as a child, but she was never a licensed truck driver.

Besides that, Noem hasn’t exactly been a paragon of road safety herself. In 2010, The Hill reported that Noem—then a Republican congressional candidate for South Dakota—had a whopping “20 speeding tickets, three stop-sign violations, two seat-belt violations and a citation for driving with no driver’s license.” She had also been issued six court notices for failing to appear, and had two warrants out for her arrest.

Katie Miller, the wife of Trump adviser Stephen Miller, appeared on Piers Morgan’s YouTube show and melted down after other panelists challenged her lies. 

Miller, a former administration staffer herself, was part of a panel that included left-wing commentator Cenk Uygur, fitness influencer Jillian Michaels, and Palestinian American analyst Omar Baddar to discuss New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani’s comments on Islamophobia in the U.S. But upon having her lies called out, Miller attacked the other panelists, particularly Uygur, and accused them of antisemitism. 

“Why is it that every time someone wants to criticize Mamdani, it immediately comes back to the Jews and the anti-Israel movement instead of actually talking about his viewpoints?” Miller asked, her voice raised. 

“Nobody said Jews. You just said it. You always do that. We say Israel, you say Jews. We say Israel as a government. Please don’t make it about Jewish Americans,” Uygur responded, explaining that he believes that Israel should be a safe haven for Jewish people within its 1967 borders, without seizing the West Bank from the Palestinians. 

“You’re totally lying—it’s very normal for a Miller to be completely and utterly lying,” Uygur added, saying to Miller, “You and your husband are supposed to be working for America. Not for Israel. I think you’re betraying this country.” 

This set Miller off. 

“Quite frankly, I’m really sick and tired of this racist bigoted rhetoric that can comes from people like you against my husband, against my family, and my children. I am raising Jewish children in this country—” Miller shot back, before Uygur said incredulously, “Who brought your children into this? What a weirdo.” 

Miller even stooped to threatening Uygur’s immigration status, telling him to “check his citizenship application.”  

Baddar came to Uygur’s defense. 

“Somebody criticizing you personally is not an antisemitic attack,” the analyst said to Miller. “If somebody says that you are lying, that is not an attack on Jews, that is an attack on you, and just stop hiding behind identity. This is all the snowflake behavior that the right is supposedly criticizing the left for that you’re simply repeating here.” 

“Yes, Steven Miller is a destructive force in American society. That is not an attack on Jews. That is no reference to his identity. This is an attack on him individually, and just deal with the merits of this case,” Baddar added. 

Miller has not made many media appearances where her views were challenged, and it appears she can’t handle it. Her husband is responsible for many of the president’s worst policies, including his mass deportation efforts, but she can’t seem to handle the criticism being spoken to her face.

Watch the full show on YouTube.