When President Trump took office on January 20, 2025, he issued numerous executive orders, among them one that suspended the admissions of refugees into the United States. This executive order includes carveouts for refugees whose admission may be in the national interest of the United States, and notes that it is the policy of the United States “to admit only those refugees who can fully and appropriately assimilate into the United States.” 1 A little over two weeks later, President Trump issued a second executive order entitled, “Addressing the Egregious Actions of the Republic of South Africa.” 2 This order directed the Secretaries of State and Homeland Security to “prioritize humanitarian relief, including admission and resettlement through the Unites States Refugee Admissions Program, for Afrikaners in South Africa who are victims of unjust racial discrimination.” 3 The “government-sponsored race-based discrimination” in question includes what the order describes as “countless government policies designed to dismantle equal opportunity in employment, education, and business,” including a recent law that, again, according to the order, “enables the government of South Africa to seize ethnic minority Afrikaner’s agricultural property without compensation.” 4 The executive order targeting South Africa also halts all other aid or assistance to the country from the United States because South Africa has “taken aggressive positions towards the United States and its allies, including accusing Israel, not Hamas, of genocide in the International Court of Justice.” 5
Achiume et al. (Wed,) studied this question.