Refugee advocates are gearing up for possible legal action following President Trump’s decision to drastically reduce the number of refugees allowed into the United States. The new cap, set at a mere 7,500 admissions, marks a historic low and represents a 94% decrease from President Biden’s previous target of 125,000. This move has drawn criticism for seemingly prioritizing admissions for white South Africans, sparking concerns of racial bias.

In a controversial turn, the Trump administration announced this significant reduction without engaging Congress, bypassing the usual consultative process. The notification appeared on the Federal Register a month after being signed, with no apparent dialogue with congressional Democrats. This has raised eyebrows and potential legal challenges, emphasizing the lack of bipartisan consultation.

Laurie Ball Cooper, vice president for U.S. legal programs at the International Refugee Assistance Project, highlighted these procedural missteps. “The law mandates that the president consults with specific congressional committees, which include members from both parties, not just members of his own party,” she explained during a call with reporters. Cooper underscored the legal and ethical issues, pointing to the establishment of a seemingly race-based preference system rather than one grounded in humanitarian needs.

The newly set figure by Trump falls significantly below the previous low of 11,814 refugees admitted during his first term, a number reached during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. This decision has prompted advocates to prepare for potential court battles, challenging the legality and fairness of this unprecedented refugee admission policy.

“So that’s one set of legal problems. It’s also hugely problematic that this document sets up a race-based preference system instead of a humanitarian protection system, and so I expect to see a number of challenges to this.”

The figure set by Trump would fall well below the lowest number of refugee admissions attained under his first administration — 11,814, then an all-time low reached at the height of the COVID pandemic.

Trump also directs that “the admissions numbers shall primarily be allocated among Afrikaners from South Africa.”

Critics see the designation as an abandonment of the goals set by the 1980 program, which formalized existing U.S. policies on accepting those displaced due to persecution and danger.

House Democrats said they were never consulted about the major decline in admissions or the shift in focus on who would be granted the protections.

Failure to consult with Congress could spur a challenge, possibly under claims that the administration violated the Administrative Procedures Act (APA).

House Democrats can’t sue on behalf of Congress, but they could make their opinion known by submitting an amicus brief in any litigation.

“Neither Democratic nor Republican leadership on the Judiciary Committees was consulted. So we have a litigation group in the House to deal with the reign of lawlessness that we’re seeing across the government, and we file amicus briefs in a whole bunch of different cases,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee.

“So we’re going to explore all of our options here, knowing that we take very seriously a flawed process, and a flawed process that has produced a completely egregious result in essentially the destruction of the refugee program, except as it relates to the favored white Afrikaners minority from South Africa.”

The low numbers set by the cap are another deviation.

“No president other than Trump has set the ceiling below 60,000 in the 45-year history of the program,” said Erol Kekic, senior vice president of Church World Service, a refugee resettlement group.

The content of the order itself could also be subject to challenge, with refugee advocates arguing it unfairly weighs race rather than the dangerous conditions refugees face in their home countries. 

Trump’s reference to Afrikaners said the program should be open to those who face “illegal or unjust discrimination. But that’s different from the existing standard of accepting those who have fled due to conflict, violence, or persecution.

“The wording in the [presidential determination] that references illegal or unjust discrimination that is not the definition of a refugee under U.S. law, or, for that matter, international law,” said John Slocum, executive director of Refugee Council USA.

“It’s certainly not legally sound in terms of its reference to how populations will be selected for this program.”

Trump has repeatedly expressed concern for the white minority group in South Africa, saying they face “hateful rhetoric” and “disproportionate violence.”

Trump signed an order in February encouraging the U.S. to accept Afrikaners as refugees, citing a new law allowing the South African government to seize land for public use. The new law allows the government to do so for citizens of any race, but Trump has nonetheless claimed the law was designed to “seize ethnic minority Afrikaners’ agricultural property without compensation.”

“This Act follows countless government policies designed to dismantle equal opportunity in employment, education, and business, and hateful rhetoric and government actions fueling disproportionate violence against racially disfavored landowners,” Trump wrote in the order.

South Africa is a high-crime country, and its government has denied Trump’s claims surrounding Afrikaners, calling them “completely false.”

South Africa’s ambassador to Washington, Ebrahim Rasool, previously said Trump’s comments were “mobilising a supremacism” and trying to “project white victimhood as a dog whistle.”

The U.S. has already welcomed more than 50 Afrikaners and additional vetting of applicants from there is expected in the coming months.

Raskin said the focus on the group was an abandonment of the program’s goals.

“It’s not the standard traditional language of a well founded fear of persecution and so on. It’s this new standard that seems a little bit customized to address the situation of the Afrikaners,” he said.

“It’s clearly a weakening of the general standard, I think, to somehow justify their exclusive, disproportionate and indefensible focus on Afrikaners. And we need to get back to the idea that we are rescuing people who are facing emergency conditions because of persecution, for racial, ethnic, political, religious, gender based reasons and so on.”