The Trump administration announced Thursday that it will significantly reduce the number of refugees the United States will accept in the upcoming fiscal year and prioritize white South Africans who it says are facing discrimination in their home country.

According to notices published in the Federal Register, the U.S. will admit no more than 7,500 refugees between October 2025 and September 2026. The guidance explicitly states that Afrikaner refugees and other victims of illegal or unjust discrimination in their respective homelands will receive priority.

The new cap marks a sharp reduction from the Biden administration, which admitted roughly 100,000 refugees annually. It also represents the lowest refugee intake since the 1970s, when the limit stood at 17,000 per year. Even during the COVID-19 pandemic under Trump’s first term, the United States accepted at least 11,000 refugees annually, Politico reported.

In a significant procedural shift, the administration announced that oversight of refugee resettlement contracts will move from the State Department to the Office of Refugee Resettlement within the Department of Health and Human Services — a major departure from how the U.S. refugee program has traditionally been managed.

The administration did not provide much of an explanation for the changes in the notice, but did stress the need to conduct refugee resettlement “in a manner that serves the national interest, promotes efficient use of taxpayer dollars, protects the integrity of the United States immigration system, and supports refugees in achieving early economic self-sufficiency and assimilation into American society.”