The US has not admitted any refugees — not really, not exactly — in 2026. Everyone who had this immigration designation has been a white South African. Except for three people who were something other than a white South African.
Andrea Pitzer explains this.
[Andrea Pitzer speaking:] "As Mother Jones has reported, with more than 6,000 refugees admitted to this country since October 1 of last year" [i.e., since October 1, 2025] — [clip of Donald Trump speaking:] "but whether they're white or black makes no difference to me" — [Pitzer again:] "only three asylum seekers who were admitted was anything but somebody white from South Africa." [Clip of Nermeen Shaikh speaking on May 21, 2026:] "The Trump administration is advancing plans to increase the number of white South Africans it admits to the United States as refugees in the coming months. The proposal would see an additional 10,000 white South Africans resettled into the US even as the Trump administration continues to block the entry of refugees from other countries." (0:40-1:15)
"In June 2018, Sullivan posted on Twitter, 'Slowing massive demographic change is not fascist, it's conservative.' He was arguing against undocumented people in America. But did this slight of hand to talk about slowing demographic change? Is he against people coming without papers, or is he against people from predominantly non-white countries showing up? I've thought about this line of reasoning a lot since he made that comment years ago because 'slowing massive demographic change' is eugenics." (13:05–13:48)
"The long-standing ideal of the country as a home for poor huddled masses yearning to breathe free is erased." (15:16-24)
"The trap," says Pitzer, "is the idea that someone else's race or culture is the actual reason you feel lost." (17:03–10)
"Fascism has never — not once in human history — been driven by demographic change, a majority becoming a minority. Germans were under no demographic threat in the 1930s. Poles and Austrians are under no demographic threat. Nor are Italians. Whatever refugees and immigrants have arrived on these shores, they’re hardly to about to establish states where sipping coffee and wine, among other staples of European cultural life, are suddenly outlawed. And yet, neofascist politics are rising in all these places, aren’t they?"
— umair haque, Why it’s a Myth That Fascism’s About Demographic Change and Cultural Anxiety: How Neoliberals Have Taught You to Play Right Into Fascists’ Hands — Without Knowing It, Medium, Aug 17, 2018
"For the first time in a generation, the idea of freedom is not an especially important animating principle for the right. They use the word still, but they are fundamentally about something else now, fundamentally about protecting people from supposedly menacing forces like demographic change and changes to M&Ms and children’s books and 'woke' corporations. This is the pitch not of freedom but of the strongman."
Anand Giridharadas, Kamala Harris on Freedom: It's not just a Beyoncé song — it's about reclaiming an American ideal, The Ink, Jul 25, 2024
Here's a mention of "demographic change" I found. (emphases mine)
"The premise of the Mindful Resistance Project is that understanding and addressing the root causes of Trumpism is important—so important that we shouldn’t let Trump’s antics and outrages get in the way of this mission. To put a finer point on it: 1) We need to respond to each day’s news about Trump wisely—with moral clarity and forceful conviction but with awareness of the way overreactions to his provocations can play into his hands. 2) Meanwhile, we need to get a deeper understanding of the forces that led so many people to vote for Trump. These forces include globalization, demographic change, the loss of jobs through automation, and a political polarization that is grounded partly in the tribalizing tendencies of social media. This polarization is also grounded in what you might call the psychology of tribalism, in cognitive biases that afflict us all—so fostering an understanding of how our minds work will be among the goals of this project."
Robert Wright, How to Fight Trump Mindfully: Plus: Non-Trump news. Trump goes hawk? A setback for EVs? (Working) class-less Dems. And more! NonZero Newsletter, Nov 8, 2024
