Libertarian Group Demands More Third World Refugees

A Cato Institute researcher said it was “just absurd” that white South Africans dominated 2026 refugee resettlement into the United States.

Cato Institute Immigration Studies Director David Bier posted a screenshot on X of Fiscal Year (FY) 2026 US Refugee Admission Program (USRAP) data that showed only 1,651 refugees were admitted to the United States from October to January. All but three were white South Africans. 

Bier told the Daily Caller News Foundation (DCNF) that “white South Africans” are not the only refugees worthy of resettlement to the United States. Bier said the refugees are legal immigrants, not asylum seekers or illegal immigrants, and would have gone through a very extensive vetting process in the US immigration system.

“Although the refugee process needed reforms, those reforms should have focused on empowering Americans as individuals to take financial responsibility for resettling more refugees, not ending the process for nearly everyone,” Bier told the DCNF. “Most refugees blocked by the president’s actions are persecuted Christians.”

In previous years, most African refugees processed through USRAP came from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Congolese migrants accounted for almost 20% of the 100,034 refugees that came to the US in 2024, according to USRAP FY data.

Dr. Matthew O’Brien, deputy executive director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), told the DCNF that neither Bier nor the Cato Institute seemed to care about a refugee’s skin tone when they were non-white.

“If one examines the number of Caucasians versus non-Caucasians admitted to the U.S. over the history of the refugee program, the evidence tends to demonstrate an explicit bias against white applicants,” O’Brien told the DCNF. “Particularly since the Refugee Act of 1980, the overwhelming number of refugee admissions have been non-Caucasians.”

“To any rational observer, the only thing absurd about this situation is that CATO and Mr. Bier seem to be focused on a complete non-issue while remaining utterly disinterested in examining the frightening levels of fraud and deception heretofore connected with the refugee program,” said O’Brien. 

O’Brien said that when administering a refugee program, the US government’s key priority must be protecting American citizens by avoiding the admittance of security and public safety problems into the US. “Trump’s decision to temporarily suspend the majority of refugee admissions can only be seen as a prudent measure that ensures the safety and sovereignty interests of the United States while refugee vetting procedures are improved and security priorities are refocused,” O’Brien said.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order in January 2025 suspending the United States Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) “until such time as the further entry into the United States of refugees aligns with the interests of the United States.” Of the 38,102 refugees that came into the United States in FY 2025, only 502 arrived after Trump’s inauguration. according to USRAP FY data.

Trump signed an executive order in February 2026 that condemned South Africa’s Expropriation Act for allowing the government to seize white South Africans’ agricultural property without compensation. The executive order also suspended aid to South Africa and created a pathway for the white Afrikaner minority to come to the US as refugees.

Around 68% of the refugees who entered the US in FY 2025 under the Trump administration were South Africans according to USRAP data.

The Afrikaner farmer population faces disproportionate violence in South Africa, suffering thousands of racially-motivated farm attacks and murders just since 2009. Trump called the violence “a genocide that’s taking place that [reporters] don’t want to write about.”