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Side With Refugees as Trump Deploys Historically Low Refugee Admissions Goal
On October 31, the Administration released the Presidential Determination on Refugee Admissions for Fiscal Year 2026 in the Federal Register. The determination sets a refugee admissions goal, a ceiling, for the upcoming year at 7,500. This is the lowest number in the history of the refugee program. The announcement indicates that Afrikaners from South Africa, as well as “other victims of illegal or unjust discrimination,” will be privileged within that small pool.
In effect, this goal closes the door to the tens of thousands of refugees who have already been approved. People who have been waiting for years in the pipeline, from places such as:
- Sudan, the world’s largest displacement crises
- The Democratic Republic of the Congo
- Ukraine
- Venezuela, and
- Afghans.
Despite reference to "other victims", in our view, this determination excludes:
- Persecuted religious minorities
- Unaccompanied refugee children
- Families awaiting reunification
- Many others who are fleeing harm and danger
- Many who likely have viable arguments for refuge
Take action. Engage Congress. Urge our elected leaders to hold the administration to the Refugee Act of 1980. We still have time to act. We can still advocate for the restoration of protection for refugees.
“The administration’s refugee resettlement goal is deeply troubling. Our moral outrage continues,” said Pablo DeJesús, Executive Director of Unitarian Universalists for Social Justice. “Our U.S. program should focus on the most at-risk refugees and those already in the established process. This goal supports neither priority. The goal and policy behind it seem willfully blind to the historic patterns of racial injustice across the global south. The goal is profoundly unfair to refugees in the pipeline, mid-process. It ignores the fact that some refugees have already begun seeking entry or relocating to the U.S. Therefore, we urge Congress to side with refugees and our country’s resettlement programs. If the administration will not take the long view, the systems view, and will not sustain basic functions or structures, Congress must assert its authority, its oversight functions. Congress must defend our refugee policy and funding imperatives, and the compassion Americans have shown for those fleeing harm.”
Interfaith Immigration Coalition Statement:
Faith Groups Condemn All Time Low Refugee Resettlement Goal
High-level Details:
The 2026 Presidential Determination on Refugee Admissions:
- Sets the refugee target at 7,500 for the remainder of the fiscal year (through September 30, 2026). No president other than Donald Trump, regardless of party, has ever set a refugee admissions target below 60,000.
- Prioritizing Afrikaners from South Africa for nearly all available slots is a troubling precedent. The PD adds moral insult to injury within the pool of very few slots by prioritizing Afrikaners ahead of other refugees. Placing this population ahead of tens of thousands who had already been conditionally approved for resettlement. This includes an estimated 12,000+ who had flights booked to come to the U.S. when the refugee ban went into effect.
- Unlawful in meeting requirements to consult with Congress. While the PD asserts it occurred after “appropriate consultations with Congress,” that representation has been characterized as false. House and Senate Judiciary Committee leaders have said the administration “brazenly ignored the statutory requirement to consult, going so far as to call the PD “illegal and invalid.”
- The travel ban stays in place. Instituting another bad precedent, the seemingly indefinite refugee and travel ban remains. The International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP) noted the directive appears to make these bans permanent in a press conference on October 31. Correspondingly, any refugee admitted to the U.S. during 2026 would likely need to qualify for an exception to the ongoing bans. Meaning, the only refugees who qualify for exceptions are the Afrikaners or those refugees who arrived pursuant to court intervention in Pacito v. Trump.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
- Advocacy Guide: Presidential Determination on Refugee Admissions (November 2025)
- CWS Statement: CWS Condemns Administration Refugee Plan as Moral Failure and Affront to American Values
- CWS/HIAS/World Relief Op-Ed: We practice our faith by welcoming refugees. Now, that work is at risk.
- Welcome With Dignity Statement: The Welcome With Dignity Campaign Decries the U.S. Government’s Finalized Refugee Cap for FY 2026, an Affront to People Seeking Safety Around the World
- Refugee Council USA Statement: RCUSA Condemns Historically Low FY 2026 Refugee Admissions Goal and Abandonment of Refugees Most At Risk
- CWS: Daily State of Play: The Trump administration’s indefinite refugee ban and funding halt
- House and Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats: Ranking Members Raskin, Jayapal, Durbin, and Padilla Condemn Trump Administration’s Unlawful Refugee Cap
- Senate Foreign Relations Committee: Ranking Member Shaheen, Democratic Colleagues Condemn Trump Administration’s Historically Low Refugee Cap
- CWS: Take Action: Urge Your Members of Congress to Support Legislation that Reverses Harmful SNAP Cuts
- IRAP: Administration Undermines Refugee Act with New Presidential Determination
UU Grounding
As of General Assembly 2024, as Unitarian Universalists, we have agreed to “adopt new language on core religious values.” We agree that love is the power that holds us together and is at the center of our shared values.
The values we share include all the following, which we hold as inseparable and deeply interconnected: Interdependence, Pluralism, Justice, Transformation, Generosity, and Equity. (Read more on the Article II revision process.) With these agreed core religious values in mind, we also ground our call for action in support of immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers in the following Unitarian Universalist Statements of Conscience and Actions of Immediate Witness:
- Protect the Dreamers, the Recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) with a Pathway to Permanent Residence, 2023 Action of Immediate Witness
- Undoing Systemic White Supremacy: A Call to Prophetic Action, 2021 Statement of Conscience
- Protect the Rights of Immigrants and Asylum Seekers, 2019 Action of Immediate Witness
- End Family Separation and Detention of Asylum Seekers and Abolish ICE, 2018 Action of Immediate Witness
- Build Solidarity with our Muslim Neighbors, 2016 Action of Immediate Witness
- End Immigrant Child and Family Detention Now, 2015 Action of Immediate Witness
- Immigration as a Moral Issue, 2013 Statement of Conscience
Side With Refugees as Trump Deploys Historically Low Refugee Admissions Goal
On October 31, the Administration released the Presidential Determination on Refugee Admissions for Fiscal Year 2026 in the Federal Register.
The determination sets a refugee admissions goal, a ceiling, for the upcoming year at 7,500.
In effect, this goal closes the door to the tens of thousands of refugees who have already been approved.
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Unitarian Universalists for Social Justice (UUSJ) has been the leader for a national UU advocacy movement in Washington, DC., and will continue our efforts, acting from:
- Our conviction that Black Lives Matter
- Our belief that No Human Being is Illegal
- Our care for the planet which sustains us all and merits respect
- Our commitment to a people-centered sustainable economy
- Our stance that this democracy should be inclusive