White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller conducts a television interview with CNN outside the White House on May 30, 2025. The Trump administration did not allow any persecuted Christians to enter the United States as refugees in FY 2026. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
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The Trump administration did not allow any persecuted Christians to enter the United States as refugees in FY 2026. A new report from two Christian groups highlights the administration’s historic restrictions against individuals facing religious persecution and other refugees. White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, the chief architect of the administration’s immigration policies, has long opposed refugees entering the United States. The report could embarrass an administration in which Vice President JD Vance and other officials have expressed their Christian beliefs.
Immigration Report Paints A Bleak Picture For Christian Refugees
“One in seven Christians (over 388 million) face high levels of persecution or discrimination,” according to a new report by World Relief, a global Christian humanitarian organization, and Open Doors US, an evangelical Christian organization that supports persecuted Christians. The report notes that despite the persecution for their beliefs experienced by Christians (and people of other religions), the Trump administration admitted no persecuted Christians as refugees in FY 2026.
“Throughout its 250-year history as a nation, the U.S. has, for many, represented a ‘golden door’ to freedom, including religious freedom,” according to World Relief President and CEO Myal Greene and Open Doors US President and CEO Ryan Brown. “This report’s iterations have shown over the years how the U.S.’s refugee resettlement and asylum processes have provided needed haven for Christians and other religious minorities who have had to flee their homes. This year, however, the U.S. has not been a haven to Christians—or any other religious minority.”
Greene and Brown write, “With less than one month remaining in the federal fiscal year, not a single religious minority refugee has been resettled in 2026 from any of the top countries of concern for religious persecution. The ‘golden door’ to those fleeing religious persecution has been effectively closed.”
In January 2025, the Trump administration suspended refugee entry to the United States via an executive order. After blocking entry to refugees already vetted and approved in FY 2025, the administration began using the refugee program to admit individuals that legal experts say would have trouble meeting the definition of a refugee. “The Presidential Determination on Refugee Admissions for Fiscal Year 2026 set a new precedent,” noted the report. “Disregarding the traditional international legal definition of a refugee, individuals identified outside of their country of origin who have a well-founded fear of persecution, it instead made a provision for resettling 7,500 white South Africans . . . In June 2026, the ceiling was increased to 17,500, but still with the same singular focus on one population group.”
Critics called the entry of white South Africans while excluding all other refugees racist or an effort at trolling by Stephen Miller.
The administration has restricted all avenues to legal immigration, with refugee restrictions a prominent part of those policies. “The Trump administration’s policies will reduce legal immigration to the United States by an estimated 33% to 50%, or by 1.5 million to 2.4 million legal immigrants, by the end of Donald Trump’s four-year term,” according to a January 2026 National Foundation for American Policy analysis.
State Department Refugee Bureau Website Focuses On Preventing Immigration, Not Admitting Refugees
Refugee admissions have historically flowed through the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, and its website reflects the dramatic changes made during Donald Trump’s second term. On the bureau’s website, there is no mention of refugees. The website contains only two elements: a list of the bureau’s three leaders and a mission statement that does not discuss refugees: “The Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration conducts diplomacy aimed at ending mass and illegal migration.” In other words, the bureau’s mission is not admitting refugees, or even to assist them overseas, but “ending mass and illegal migration.”
Before Trump’s second term, the bureau’s mission was described much differently: “PRM promotes U.S. interests by providing protection, easing suffering, and resolving the plight of persecuted and forcibly displaced people around the world.” (See the website here from 2017 to 2021.)
According to the World Relief-Open Doors US report, “Key aspects of the persecution Christians face today include religious nationalism, authoritarian regimes, ethnic/clan oppression and organized crime/corruption. In addition, many Christian refugees often flee political and economic pressures alongside serious religious persecution.”
The report notes that the Trump administration may end the refugee status of more persecuted Christians than it admits. Under Operation PARRIS, the Department of Homeland Security has focused on “refugee reverification,” a process that includes reinterviewing refugees already settled in the United States. DHS detained approximately 150 refugees before questions about the policy and legal action paused elements of Operation PARRIS.
The report notes that the administration has tightened the asylum process and hearings before immigration judges, making the chances of approval “slim” for individuals facing persecution. “In cases before immigration judges, the grant rate for asylum was 47.5% in FY 2023, but by FY 2025 it had fallen to just 23.5%, an unprecedented low. In FY 2026 YTD, the rate has gone down even further to only 7.7%.”
In light of the immigration policy report from World Relief and Open Doors US, I asked the State Department to comment on whether the Trump administration will block the admission of persecuted Christian refugees during the remainder of Donald Trump’s presidential term. A State Department spokesperson said on background, “President Trump will make the determination on refugee admissions for fiscal year 2027 at the appropriate time.” Fiscal year 2027 begins on October 1, 2026.
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