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In a significant shift in U.S. immigration policy, President Donald Trump announced plans to reduce the number of refugees allowed into the United States to just 7,500 by 2026. This move, according to the administration, aims to improve economic opportunities for American workers by boosting their wages and enabling them to afford better housing.
This decision has sparked a storm of criticism from pro-immigration advocates, who argue that such a drastic reduction undermines America’s moral responsibility on the global stage. Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president of a prominent refugee advocacy group, expressed her disapproval, stating, “This decision doesn’t just lower the refugee admissions ceiling. It lowers our moral standing.”
The controversy intensified with Trump’s inclusion of white Afrikaners from South Africa in the refugee intake, a departure from previous policies that primarily focused on accepting Muslims from Muslim-majority countries and individuals from conflict-ridden African nations. This shift has been criticized as a departure from the original intent of the U.S. Refugee Program.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the American Immigration Council voiced his concerns, noting, “Since the U.S. Refugee Program was created in 1980, it has admitted over two million people fleeing ethnic cleansing and other horrors. Now it will be used as a pathway for White immigration. What a downfall for a crown jewel of America’s international humanitarian programs.”
The critics aimed at Trump’s decision to include white Afrikaners from South Africa in the annual inflow of invited migrants, which previously favored Muslims from Muslim countries and blacks from war-ravaged African countries.
“Since the U.S. Refugee Program was created in 1980, it has admitted over two million people fleeing ethnic cleansing and other horrors,” said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, an advocate at the American Immigration Council. “Now it will be used as a pathway for White immigration. What a downfall for a crown jewel of America’s international humanitarian programs.”
The refugee program picks and transports migrants from favored locations, and provides them with special federal aid for several years. Once they arrive, the refugees are also eligible for nearly all welfare programs, ensuring a bounty of consumer spending and rent payments for nearby businesses and employers.
Trump’s directive, due to be published tomorrow, says:
Admission numbers will primarily be allocated among Afrikaners from South Africa, pursuant to Executive Order 14204, and other victims of illegal or unjust criminal discrimination in their respective homelands… [The order] mandates that the refugees receive the most stringent identification verification of any class of aliens seeking admission or entry to the United States.
Many progressives prefer to help dependent foreigners rather than Americans who refuse to be pitied by their fellow citizens. In 2024, Biden’s agencies set the refugee number at 125,000 and began using it to provide would-be migrants from South America with a legalized, safer, and cheaper path into American communities.
A 2024 federal study said the federal government profits from the refugee inflow, even as state and local governments are forced to spend more than they gain via local taxes from the poor migrants.
Pro-migration advocacy groups have long ignored and hidden the huge damage done to ordinary Americans by the policy of dumping many invited migrants — mostly poor and ill-educated — into American communities, including Buffalo, N.Y. and Springfield, Ohio, where Biden’s deputies helped settle thousands of Haitian migrants.
“I would talk to constituents in Springfield, Ohio,” Vice President JD Vance told the New York Post for an interview posted on October 29:
Here’s the situation they would describe to me that happened in Springfield, Ohio. So, you’re a landlord and you’re renting a three-bedroom house to a family of four or five. They’re paying let’s say a $1,000 per month a couple of years ago… Now all of a sudden four families of Haitian migrants come in, each of them getting $1,000 per family [in federal aid] and they’re willing to put 20 people in a three-bedroom house. What does that do? That prices all of the American citizens out of those houses. That drives up the rents for everybody because now you have a three-bedroom house that you can rent for $4,000 a month or $3,000 a month instead of $1,000 a month.”
“That completely destroys the ability of Americans to live the American dream, and that’s what those open border policies did,” Vance added.
But refugee programs also slashed Americans’ ability to bargain for decent wages with many companies, especially with meatpackers. Once Trump cut off the supply of refugees and illegal migrants, Americans’ ability to make workplace deals jumped.
On June 6, knlvradio.com reported from Nebraska that the huge JBS meatpacking firm had signed a deal that gives pay raises, paid sick leave, and a pension plan to 26,000 meatpacking workers. The article was headlined, “Groundbreaking Union Contract Brings Major Gains for JBS Workers Across the U.S.”
“I’ve been working at JBS for 10 years, and when I got the news about the pension, I was excited,” said Thelma Cruz, who works at the JBS Pork plant in Marshalltown, Iowa. “My husband also works here, and when we retire, we will both get pension checks every month.”
Before Trump stopped the supply of refugees, meatpacking companies were able to employ many thousands of refugees and migrants to work in tough, dangerous, and poorly paid jobs that Americans avoided because of the hazards and low pay.
The loss of cheap labor is also forcing meatpacking companies to spend more on high-tech equipment. In June, FoodDive.com reported:
Cargill said it will invest close to $90 million in computer vision and other cutting edge technologies over the next few years at a Colorado beef plant, which will allow the food giant to get more meat out of each animal.
…
Cargill has looked to automate some of its processes to improve production efficiencies and make operations safer for employees. The company has implemented more than 100 projects across 35 facilities in North America as part of its Factory of the Future initiative.
“In addition to the technology upgrades at the Fort Morgan plant, Cargill is investing to address labor constraints by backing a $40 million development project for employee housing,” the site reported.
Greater productivity and higher wages for Americans will indirectly aid the poor countries that are being stripped of young people via migration. Those gains will come from new trade deals that allow foreign countries to produce and sell products into the United States to America’s prosperous population.
For now, the loss of new refugee workers is forcing employers to search for new Americans to hire, including some of the Americans who have been abandoned to drug markets.
This month, FBI Director Kash Patel led the first major police raid on the infamous drug market in Kensington, Pa., and arrested dozens of foreign traffickers who have kept many Americans in thrall to fentanyl and other lethal drugs.
