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Women Fighting Authoritarianism and Corporate Power Honored With Right Livelihood Award
The winners are "rewriting the rules that autocrats, patriarchs, and Silicon Valley’s most powerful men assumed were theirs to write alone.”
Oct 01, 2026
The winners of the annual Right Livelihood Award, announced on Wednesday, are two women and two women-led groups who "refused to wait for permission," said the executive director of the award committee.
“A system built to serve the few was never going to hold," said Ole von Uexkull, who added that the winners of the 2026 award are "rewriting the rules that autocrats, patriarchs, and Silicon Valley’s most powerful men assumed were theirs to write alone.”
The honorees include Jalila Haider, a Pakistani human rights lawyer who was the first female attorney from her Hazara community; Timnit Gebru, an American artificial intelligence researcher who has challenged the consolidation of power in Big Tech and exposed the potential harms of AI; the Rural Women's Assembly in South Africa, a movement of 78,000 small-scale farmers "united to defend land, seed, and bodily autonomy against corporate agribusiness and patriarchal dispossession"; and the Georgian Young Lawyers' Association (GYLA), the country's first human rights organization in Georgia, which has played a crucial role in its democratization.
The winners of the award, said Right Livelihood in a video about the 2026 laureates, "are making justice the center of the narrative."
Haider has combined legal work with on-the-ground activism, leading a seven-day hunger strike in 2018 against the targeted killing of Hazaras, a Shia Muslim minority, by the Pakistani army. The strike forced the army chief to negotiate directly with Hazara women, "resulting in a sustained decrease in attacks against the community."
Her law firm has also helped more than 600 political activists regain their freedom.
"Despite detention, cyberharassment, and death threats, she continues working toward a world where, in her words, 'no human being is illegal,'" said Right Livelihood.
Gebru was fired from Google after authoring an academic paper that warned of the risks posed by large language models; she had been co-leading the company's Ethics AI team. Now the founder and executive director of the Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research Institute (DAIR), the organization's distributed model "brings together researchers and collaborators across countries and continents, defying the centralized and corporate-driven concepts that mainstream AI entails."
"What keeps me going is belief in human agency," said Gebru in Right Livelihood's video.
The Rural Women's Assembly has "built one of the region’s largest autonomous platforms for rural women" with a volunteer structure, establishing 24 seed multiplication sites and "defending traditional seed systems from commercialization.
Its seed sovereignty efforts have challenged corporate control over South Africa's food systems and strengthened "communities’ resilience to climate shocks," according to Right Livelihood.
"We have the power, and we have the imagination that it will take to construct this new world, because another world is needed, and it's urgent," said the group's regional coordinator, Mercia Andrews.
GYLA is the first Right Livelihood winner from Georgia since the award was established in 1980. The group provides grassroots legal aid and has secured landmark legal victories, including ones that have protected rights for people with disabilities and guaranteed free education for every child in Georgia.
The group has opted to remain in the country with a scaled-down team, despite Georgia's repressive "foreign agents" law.
"With courage and determination, the organization presses on for a better future for all Georgians," said Right Livelihood.
The awards, which include support for the winners' work, are set to be presented on December 1 in Stockholm.
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An IPCC for Inequality Is Good, But It Can't Replace the Movement That Made It Possible
The gap between rich and poor will not be closed in a seminar room, it will be closed the way every advance against entrenched power has been won, by people organizing, demanding, and refusing to be told that the way things are is the way they have to stay.
Sep 25, 2026
For years, the people organizing against extreme inequality have made a simple argument that the world’s institutions preferred not to hear: The gap between the very rich and everyone else is not an accident, not a law of nature, and not something we have to accept. It is a choice, made by people with the power to choose differently.
For a long time that was a fringe position. It isn’t any more.
You can see the shift in the news that South Africa is pushing to create an International Panel on Inequality, like an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for the wealth gap, to pull the evidence together in one authoritative place and put it in front of governments. Joseph Stiglitz backs it. More than 500 economists have signed on.
Nobody skipping meals is waiting for a footnote. What they are waiting for is action, and action comes from pressure.
This is a good thing, and we welcome it. When the establishment builds an institution to take your issue seriously, it means the argument is being won. The people who got this far deserve credit.
But I want to be honest about where the real momentum is coming from, because it matters for what happens next. The panel is a sign of progress. It is not the engine of it. The engine is the movement that dragged inequality up the agenda in the first place, and that movement is where the story of actual change has been written.
Look at what the IPCC has actually done so far. For 30 years it has produced the best climate science anyone had ever assembled. It won a Nobel Prize. It leaves no room for honest denial. And for a long time, governments read it and carried on much as before. The science mattered enormously.
However, it moved politics fastest when people forced it to: kids walking out of school on Fridays for the Future, communities blocking fossil fuel projects like the Keystone XL Oil Pipeline. The movement was decisive. Change came when the two worked together, and not a moment before.
Inequality is in the same place as the climate crisis now—the evidence is not the thing we are short of. We already know the shape of it. The richest 1% took 41% of all the new wealth created between 2000 and 2024. Around 2.3 billion people, nearly 1 in 4 of us, now skip meals because they can’t afford to eat. South Africa, which is carrying this panel forward, is the most unequal country the World Bank has ever recorded.
A panel will sharpen that picture, and sharper is better. But nobody skipping meals is waiting for a footnote. What they are waiting for is action, and action comes from pressure.
Here is the encouraging part: That pressure is already working.
When Brazil used its G20 presidency to put a global tax on billionaires on the table, it did not come from nowhere. Movements, campaigners, and economists had pushed the idea for years, and the Fight Inequality Alliance was part of that.
The economist Gabriel Zucman drew up a plan: a 2% minimum tax on the world’s roughly 3,000 billionaires, enough to raise around $250 billion a year. In November 2024, for the first time, G20 leaders agreed to cooperate on taxing the ultra rich. An idea dismissed as impossible a few years earlier was suddenly the position of the world’s largest economies.
That is what movements do. They move the line of what is politically possible, and they do it faster than any institution.
This is why the movement matters, and why its role in this next chapter should be front and center. We are the ones knocking on the doors, running the campaigns, and keeping the pressure on long after the summit is over and the experts have gone home.
We have been doing it without a panel, and we have already moved things many said could not be moved. Give that movement the authoritative evidence a body like this can provide, and you do not only get a better report. You get a sharper weapon in the hands of the people already fighting.
The tax has not been won yet. The United States and Germany refused to back a binding version, and it was watered down to a promise to cooperate. But notice why.
It did not stall for lack of evidence. Zucman had done the numbers, and nobody serious disputed them. It stalled because the people who would pay still had the power to slow it down. That is the real contest, and it is not a contest of data. It is a contest of power, and power is shifted by organized people, not by publications.
I say all this as someone who spends more time with campaigners than with economists, and I will be honest about our own side too.
Movements do not win every time. We are sometimes better at naming a problem than at holding the ground we take. But the lesson of the last decade is not that we need fewer people in the fight and more in the seminar room. It is the opposite. The evidence has been overwhelming for years. What has changed the weather is people refusing to accept it.
So build this panel well, and build it close to the movement that made it necessary. Let it answer the questions people are actually fighting over. Get its evidence into the hands of the people doing the pushing. Check whether it does speak to the inequalities and the solutions people are talking about and demanding change for. Treat the organizers and the communities living this every day as partners in the work, not an audience for the findings. Do that, and this panel becomes part of something genuinely powerful.
Because the gap will not be closed in a seminar room. It never has been. It will be closed the way every advance against entrenched power has been won, by people organizing, demanding, and refusing to be told that the way things are is the way they have to stay.
The evidence is on our side. It has been for a long time. Now comes the part that actually changes lives.
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Occupation and Genocide Anywhere Are a Threat to Democracy and Freedom Everywhere
Not only is taking a stand against the overwhelming devastation that has been unleashed on Palestinians a duty, but also an obligation for people desiring peace and liberation for all.
May 20, 2026
Earlier this year a number of participants announced their withdrawal from Australia’s Adelaide Festival’s "Writer’s Week" following the disinviting of Australian-Palestinian author, Randa Abdel-Fattah. The event was subsequently cancelled.
This made me think of United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese’s words—“The occupation of Palestine must be understood as part of a broader project of domination. This is not merely about the physical borders of historical Palestine. It is a systematic assertion of permanent supremacy that knows no border…”—delivered in her Nelson Mandela Lecture.
Indeed, the impact of the ongoing genocide and occupation not only echo far beyond Palestine, because of our shared humanity, but also because of the impact it is having on freedoms across the globe. The censorship of Abdel-Fattah is yet another example of this, and it is not only happening in Australia. Even in South Africa, a country that charged Israel with genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), artists are facing attempts to constrain their work.
The global wave of solidarity with Palestine has been used by some governments as a pretext to diminish freedoms by attacking the right to protest and political participation. While some did this by using laws that were already in place, others enacted ambiguous or unduly expansive legislation criminalizing Palestine solidarity and weaponizing the battle against antisemitism.
Protecting the freedom to advocate for Palestine is essential to protecting the right to protest, a fundamental tenet of democracy.
For instance in the US, Project Esther was released by the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank also responsible for the odious Project 2025. The strategy’s recommendations have made their way into the policy of the Trump administration. This includes suing, firing, deporting, and defaming activists, organizations, and institutions by effectively claiming that involvement in advocacy for Palestine is material support of "a terrorist support network.” And also clamping down on college and university campuses where “more than 3,100 people have been arrested or detained.”
The United Kingdom, on the other hand, used counterterrorism legislation to ban Palestine Action. This despite an intelligence assessment report undermining the government’s claims by finding that most of the groups’ activities are “not terrorism” and the ban risked wrongfully criminalizing people. While the ban has been found to be unlawful, since put into effect in July 2025 terrorism arrests have increased by 660%, with the majority of these linked to it.
Across Europe Palestine solidarity was particularly targeted, like in Germany where the homes of pro-Palestinian activists have been raided and support for Israel has become a prerequisite for citizenship.
The effects of these actions will not be limited to Palestine advocacy and puts all movements at risk by diminishing freedoms that enable organizing across issues. So protecting the freedom to advocate for Palestine is essential to protecting the right to protest, a fundamental tenet of democracy.
Research by investigative journalist and author of The Palestine Laboratory, Andrew Loewenstein, identified over 120 countries that have bought weapons or some form of repressive technology from Israel, all principally tested on Palestinians.
Israel provided military and strategic support to apartheid South Africa’s invasion of Angola, resulting in mass casualties; it is among the countries that armed perpetrators of Rwanda’s genocide and Myanmar at a time it was found to be committing a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing” against its Rohingya Muslim population.
In modern times Israel’s offerings have included drones, spyware, and surveillance tools. Like the Israeli-made spyware being used by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an immigration agency that has been found to not only undertake abusive practices, but also violate its own policies.
For us in South Africa though, this is no surprise. The "homeland" of Bophuthatswana, where I was born and raised, was a product of the South African apartheid regime’s segregationist policies—which Israel took interest in—and stripped Black people of South African citizenship.
Like other homelands when it declared "independence" in 1977, it was shunned by the world. Despite its official stance, Israel was the only country to quietly recognize Bophuthatswana through informal connections and a quasi-diplomatic mission. A Jerusalem Post editorial in 1992 even referred to Bophuthatswana as "Africa’s Little Israel."
The backdrop of this relationship was the “clandestine alliance” between Israel and South Africa’s apartheid regime. Not only did the two countries collaborate on nuclear, but Israel would also become South Africa's largest weapons importer after the 1977 UN arms embargo and support the regime’s attempt to undermine sanctions.
It was a relationship of mutual admiration, an ideological alignment that in recent times is only matched by India’s admiration of Israel.
Apartheid had far-reaching consequences that extended beyond South Africa's borders. Along with unlawfully occupying Namibia, a colonial legacy embraced by the regime, it also launched hostilities in countries like Zambia and Zimbabwe. Similarly, Israel continues to conduct atrocities and aggression not only against the Palestinian people, but also in places like Lebanon, Yemen, and Syria. More recently, more than 300 people have been killed and scores injured following Israel's 10 minute assault in Lebanon—despite a two-week Middle East ceasefire, which Israel would afterwards claim did not include Lebanon. In the same way apartheid was deemed a threat to international peace and security, so too is the occupation and genocide in Palestine.
Not only is taking a stand against the overwhelming devastation that has been unleashed on Palestinians a duty, but also an obligation for people desiring peace and liberation for all. Because beyond the bombs, Israel has used international humanitarian law to try to justify the murder of civilians—a template being adopted by others like the Rapid Support Forces in Sudan.
Like the people of South Africa and oppressed people everywhere, the people of Palestine too will continue to make their rightful claim to freedom. And for the sake of humanity everywhere, people of conscience must continue to stand with them and keep the fire of freedom within reach.
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US Joins ICJ Case to Claim Genocide Allegations Against Israel 'False'
The intervention comes as the US and Israel are waging a joint war on Iran.
Mar 13, 2026
After over two years of arming and otherwise supporting the Israeli government as it lays waste to the Gaza Strip—even after an October ceasefire deal—the United States this week officially joined an International Court of Justice case to defend Israel from allegations of genocide.
The United Nations' primary tribunal announced Friday that the Trump administration had filed a declaration of intervention under Article 63 of the ICJ statute. The filing states, "To avoid any doubt, the United States affirms, in the strongest terms possible, that the allegations of 'genocide' against Israel are false."
"They are also unfortunately nothing new," the document continues. "The United States recalls that international fora have been misused to level false charges of 'genocide' against the state of Israel since at least May 1976 as part of a broader campaign (including UN General Assembly resolution 3379) to delegitimize the state of Israel and the Jewish people and to justify or encourage terrorism against them."
"Sadly, that effort remains' ongoing," the filing claims. "Only days after Hamas launched its assault of mass rape, murder, and kidnapping on October 7, 2023, pro-Hamas actors, including the Islamic Republic of Iran, were already falsely charging Israel once again with 'genocide.'"
The filing comes less than two weeks after President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu began a joint war against Iran. Since then, Israel has also returned to bombing Lebanon, despite a November 2024 ceasefire agreement, and again cut off the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza. The bombing of Gaza by Israel has also continued.
When South Africa initiated its case in December 2023, accusing Israel of violating the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide with its slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza, Israel's bombardment and blockade had killed more than 21,500 people, according to local health officials.
The Gaza Ministry of Health now puts the death toll at 72,136, with another 171,839 wounded—including 651 killed and 1,741 injured since the ceasefire began. Experts around the world have warned that the true figures could be far higher.
The US filing states that "civilian casualties, even widespread civilian casualties, are not necessarily probative of genocidal intent, particularly when they occur in the context of an armed conflict involving urban combat."
However, as South Africa highlighted in its initial application, "repeated statements by Israeli state representatives, including at the highest levels, by the Israeli president, prime minister, and minister of defense express genocidal intent."
"That intent is also properly to be inferred from the nature and conduct of Israel’s military operation in Gaza, having regard... to Israel's failure to provide or ensure essential food, water, medicine, fuel, shelter, and other humanitarian assistance for the besieged and blockaded Palestinian people, which has pushed them to the brink of famine," South Africa's filing states. "It is also clear from the nature, scope and extent of Israel’s military attacks on Gaza."
Fiji, Hungary, and Namibia also intervened in the ICJ case on Thursday. While only Namibia supports South Africa, the interventions came a day after Iceland and the Netherlands also formally backed the arguments against Israel.
In addition to the ICJ case, the International Criminal Court—also based at the Hague—has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza. Trump has retaliated with sanctions against ICC jurists.
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62,000 African Penguins Starving to Death Highlights Humanity-Driven Extinction Crisis
"If a species as iconic as the African penguin is struggling to survive," said one researcher, "it raises the question of how many other species are disappearing without us even noticing."
Dec 05, 2025
A study published this week about tens of thousands of starving African penguins is highlighting what scientists warn is the planet's sixth mass extinction event, driven by human activity, and efforts to save as many species as possible.
Researchers from the South African Department of Forestry, Fisheries, and the Environment (DFFE), the United Kingdom's University of Exeter, and other institutions examined a pair of breeding colonies north of Cape Town, South Africa, and published their findings Thursday in Ostrich: Journal of African Ornithology.
"These two sites are two of the most important breeding colonies historically—holding around 25,000 (Dassen) and around 9,000 (Robben) breeding pairs in the early 2000s. As such, they are also the locations of long-term monitoring programs," said study co-author Azwianewi Makhado from the DFFE in a statement.
As the study explains: "African Penguins moult annually, coming ashore and fasting for 21 days, when they shed and replace all their feathers. Failure to fatten sufficiently to moult, or to regain condition afterwards, results in death."
The team found that "between 2004 and 2011, the sardine stock off west South Africa was consistently below 25% of its peak abundance, and this appears to have caused severe food shortage for African penguins, leading to an estimated loss of about 62,000 breeding individuals," said co-author and Exeter associate professor Richard Sherley.
The paper notes that "although some adults moulted at a colony to the southeast, where food may have been more plentiful, much of the mortality likely resulted from failure of birds to fatten sufficiently to moult. The fishery exploitation rate of sardines west of Cape Agulhas was consistently above 20% between 2005 and 2010."
Sherley said that "high sardine exploitation rates—that briefly reached 80% in 2006—in a period when sardine was declining because of environmental changes likely worsened penguin mortality."
Humanity's reliance on fossil fuels is warming ocean water and impacting how salty it is. For the penguins' prey, said Sherley, "changes in the temperature and salinity of the spawning areas off the west and south coasts of South Africa made spawning in the historically important west coast spawning areas less successful, and spawning off the south coast more successful."
The researcher also stressed that "these declines are mirrored elsewhere," pointing out that the species' global population has dropped nearly 80% in the last three decades. With fewer than 10,000 breeding pairs left, the African penguin was uplisted to "critically endangered" on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species last year.
Sherley told Mongabay at the time that the IUCN update "highlights a much bigger problem with the health of our environment."
"Despite being well-known and studied, these penguins are still facing extinction, showing just how severe the damage to our ecosystems has become," he said. "If a species as iconic as the African penguin is struggling to survive, it raises the question of how many other species are disappearing without us even noticing. We need to act now—not just for penguins, but to protect the broader biodiversity that is crucial for the planet's future."
Looks like the combined effects of climate change and over fishing are key factors in decimating the populations of these penguins.www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...
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— Margot Hodson (@margothodson.bsky.social) December 5, 2025 at 4:46 AM
Fearful that the iconic penguin species could be extinct within a decade, the conservation organizations BirdLife South Africa and the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (SANCCOB) last year pursued a first-of-its-kind legal battle in the country, resulting in a settlement with the commercial fishing sector and DFFE.
The settlement, reached just days before a planned court hearing this past March, led to no-go zones for the commercial anchovy and sardine fishing vessels around six penguin breeding colonies: Stony Point, as well as Bird, Dassen, Dyer, Robben, and St. Croix islands.
"The threats facing the African penguin are complex and ongoing—and the order itself requires monitoring, enforcement, and continued cooperation from industry and the government processes which monitor and allocate sardine and anchovy populations for commercial purposes," Nicky Stander, head of conservation at SANCCOB, said in March.
The study also acknowledges hopes that "the revised closures—which will operate year-round until at least 2033—will decrease mortality of African penguins and improve their breeding success at the six colonies around which they have been implemented."
"However," it adds, "in the face of the ongoing impact of climate change on the abundance and distribution of their key prey, other interventions are likely to be needed."
Lorien Pichegru, a marine biology professor at South Africa's Nelson Mandela University who was not involved in the study, called the findings "extremely concerning" and warned the Guardian that the low fish numbers require urgent action "not only for African penguins but also for other endemic species depending on these stocks."
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'Unspeakably Cruel': Trump Freezes Green Cards to 235,000 Refugees Admitted Under Biden
"These are refugees who fled persecution... refugees who had been more thoroughly vetted than any other population before entering our country," said the head of the Refugee Council USA.
Nov 26, 2025
The Trump administration has halted the distribution of green cards to around 235,000 refugees admitted during the Biden administration, requiring all their claims to be reassessed, according to a memo obtained by the Associated Press.
The AP reported on Tuesday that the abrupt change will not only apply to refugees awaiting green cards, but that some who have already received them could have their permanent residency status revoked.
The memo, signed by the director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), Joseph Edlow, claims that during the previous administration, “expediency” and “quantity” were prioritized over the “detailed screening and vetting" of those who applied for refugee status.
Refugee status can be claimed by those outside the United States who fear persecution on the basis of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a social group. Most refugees who have entered the US in recent years come from nations in the midst of severe upheaval from civil war or other forms of political instability.
Between October 2021 and September 2024, the Biden administration admitted 185,640 refugees. Last year, more than 100,000 were admitted, with the largest numbers coming from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Afghanistan, Venezuela, and Syria.
The memo states that these refugees will be subject to new investigations into their claims of past persecution or fear of persecution in their home countries. It also says USCIS will review the possible grounds for inadmissibility, which could place them at risk of losing their status. Those the agency determines did not meet the criteria for admission will have "no right to appeal."
In addition to reassessing the validity of their claims of persecution, the review process will also reportedly involve an assessment of a refugee's potential for "assimilation" into the United States.
The Refugee Council USA (RCUSA) said the directive violates the Refugee Act of 1980, which states that refugees shall be considered for a green card after one year of residence in the US.
"By ordering reinterviews and halting permanent residence processing for those admitted during the previous administration, the Trump administration is placing the entire resettlement system into legal limbo," the group said.
The AP reports that the lives of many refugees in the US have been thrown into chaos by the rule change. One Syrian refugee who fled the nation's deadly civil war roughly a decade ago said he now feared that he and his family would be sent back.
“It was, and it still is a dream to be in America,” said the man, who remained anonymous for fear of being targeted by US authorities. “If they start sending back people to their home countries, you don’t have the rights that you have here and the opportunities.”
Despite the administration's claims, refugees already undergo an extraordinarily long and thorough vetting process to enter the US, which can take up to 36 months. The process involves screening of biographic and biometric information, extensive interviews, and security screenings by the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Defense.
“This administration’s disdain for refugees and newcomers is well-documented, yet it continues to find new ways to outdo itself," said Rick Santos, president and CEO of Church World Service (CWS), which provides support for refugees around the globe. "The decision to review and reinterview resettled refugees—who have already passed through the most stringent of vetting processes—is not merely a relitigation, but a retraumatizing of individuals who were assured of their safety and a chance to live free of persecution."
“Just the threat of this is unspeakably cruel," said Mark Hetfield, the president of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, in a comment to CNN. "To threaten refugees with taking away their status would be retraumatizing and a vicious misuse of taxpayer money."
CWS argued that "the resources it will take to relitigate refugees’ cases could be much better spent addressing USCIS’s backlog of approximately 4 million cases."
As Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, noted, "The same administration that redefined refugee status to cover white South Africans is now going to drown in red tape tens of thousands of refugees approved years ago, potentially even seeking to strip some of their status and deport them."
In October, the Trump administration announced that it would limit the number of refugees accepted during this fiscal year to a historic low of 7,500, down from over 100,000 under former President Joe Biden, with most spots going to the white descendants of the Europeans who subjected South Africa's majority Black population to apartheid for decades. The first of those refugees was admitted to the US earlier this week, just before the green card freeze was announced.
“The latest refugee policy announcement from the Trump administration is astounding, unprecedented, heartbreaking, and cruel,” said John Slocum, executive director of RCUSA. "These are refugees who fled persecution on account of their religion, race, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. Refugees who had been more thoroughly vetted than any other population before entering our country. Refugees who had been promised, not a temporary sojourn, but a permanent grant of freedom, safety, and opportunity."
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Trump Ripped for 'Absurdly Low' and 'Racist' Refugee Cap Prioritizing White South Africans
"Let's call this what it is—white supremacy disguised as refugee policy," said the head of the Haitian Bridge Alliance.
Oct 30, 2025
After months of reporting, President Donald Trump's administration on Thursday officially announced that it is restricting the number of refugees for this fiscal year to 7,500, with most spots going to white South Africans—a policy swiftly denounced by human rights advocates and Democrats in Congress.
"This decision doesn't just lower the refugee admissions ceiling. It lowers our moral standing," said Krish O'Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of Global Refuge. "For more than four decades, the US refugee program has been a lifeline for families fleeing war, persecution, and repression. At a time of crisis in countries ranging from Afghanistan to Venezuela to Sudan and beyond, concentrating the vast majority of admissions on one group undermines the program's purpose as well as its credibility."
The Trump administration's notice in the Federal Register doesn't mention any groups besides Afrikaners, white descendants of Europeans who subjected South Africa's majority Black population to a system of apartheid for decades. Multiple rich Trump backers—including Tesla CEO Elon Musk, venture capitalist David Sacks, and Palantir founder Peter Thiel—spent time in the country during those years.
The 7,500 cap, initially reported earlier this month, is a significant drop from both the 40,000 limit that was previously reported as under consideration by the Republican administration, and the more than 100,000 allowed under former Democratic President Joe Biden.
Four congressional Democrats who serve as ranking members on related committees—Reps. Jamie Raskin (Md.) and Pramila Jayapal (Wash.), along with Sens. Dick Durbin (Ill.) and Alex Padilla (Calif.)—issued a joint statement condemning the new cap, which they noted is "an astonishing 94% cut over last year and the lowest level in our nation's history."
"To add insult to injury, the administration is skipping over the tens of thousands of refugees who have been waiting in line for years in dire circumstances to come to the United States, and it is instead prioritizing a single privileged racial group—white South African Afrikaners—for these severely limited slots," they said. "This bizarre presidential determination is not only morally indefensible, it is illegal and invalid."
The four lawmakers continued:
The administration has brazenly ignored the statutory requirement to consult with the House and Senate Judiciary Committees before setting the annual refugee admissions ceiling. That process exists to ensure that decisions of such great consequence reflect our nation's values, our humanitarian commitments, and the rule of law, not the racial preferences or political whims of any one president.
The reason for this evasion is evident: The administration knows it cannot defend its egregious policy before Congress or the American people. While nearly 130,000 vetted, approved refugees—men, women, and children fleeing persecution and violence—wait in limbo after being promised a chance at safety, Donald Trump is looking to turn refugee admissions into another political giveaway for his pet projects and infatuations.
We reject this announcement as both unlawful and contrary to America's longstanding commitment to offer refuge to the persecuted. To twist our refugee policy into a partisan straightjacket is to betray both our legal obligations and our moral identity as a nation.
"Let's call this what it is—white supremacy disguised as refugee policy," declared Guerline Jozef, executive director of Haitian Bridge Alliance. "At a time when Black refugees from Haiti, Sudan, the Congo, and Cameroon are drowning at sea, languishing in detention, or being deported to death, the US government has decided to open its arms to those who already enjoy global privilege. This is not just immoral—it's anti-Blackness codified into federal policy."
This week alone, Hurricane Melissa killed more than 20 people in Haiti, and health officials said that the Rapid Support Forces, which are fighting against Sudan's government, killed over 1,500 people—including more than 460 systematically slaughtered at a maternity hospital—in the city of el-Fasher.
"We reject the idea that whiteness equates to worthiness," Jozef said of Trump's new refugee plan. She also took aim at the president's broader anti-immigrant policy, which has included deporting hundreds of people to El Salvador's so-called Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT).
"From Del Rio to Lampedusa, Black migrants and other immigrants of color have been criminalized, beaten, caged, and disappeared in CECOT camp in El Salvador—while their humanity is debated like a policy variable," she said. "This moment demands our humanity, our resistance, not silence."
Amy Fischer, Amnesty International USA's director for refugee and migrant rights, also tied Thursday's announcement to the broader agenda of the president—who, during his first term, faced global condemnation for policies including the forcible separation of families at the southern border.
"Setting this cap at such an absurdly low number and prioritizing white Afrikaners is a racist move that will turn the US's back on tens of thousands of people around the world who are fleeing persecution, violence, and human rights abuses," said Fischer. "Refugees have a human right to protection, and the international community—including the United States—has a responsibility to uphold that right."
"This announcement is yet another attack by the Trump administration on refugees and immigrants, showing disregard for international systems meant to protect human rights," she added. "The Trump administration must reverse course and ensure a fair, humane, and rights-based refugee admissions determination."
The announcement came just days after Trump's nominee to be ambassador to South Africa, far-right media critic Brent Bozell, faced intense criticism for refusing to say whether he would support or oppose repealing laws allowing Black Americans to vote during his Senate confirmation hearing.
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Trump Nominee for South Africa Ambassador Won't Say If He Believes Black Americans Should Be Allowed to Vote
"A window into the truly radical nature of the people Trump is nominating."
Oct 24, 2025
President Donald Trump's nominee to be ambassador to South Africa this week refused to say whether he would support or oppose repealing laws allowing Black Americans to vote.
During a Thursday Senate confirmation hearing, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) asked Trump nominee Brent Bozell, a right-wing media critic and founder of the conservative Media Research Center, about his support for Trump administration plans that limit refugee admissions almost exclusively to white Afrikaners.
"Senator, I don't make that policy," Bozell replied.
Murphy, however, did not accept this attempt at evasion.
"If I were to ask this question of virtually any nominee to be an ambassador, prior to this panel, that would be an easy layup answer: 'No, no, of course we don't support having a refugee policy where we only admit white people,'" said Murphy. "So why can't you give me your personal view on that?"
"Because, senator, I am here to serve America and to do what the president is asking me to do," Bozell said.
Murphy then asked him if he would support bringing back "laws in this country to only allow white people to vote."
Bozell again refused to answer.
"Senator, I'm going to serve as ambassador to South Africa, and I'm going to focus on that," he said.
So you should really watch this. Just 2 minutes. But a window into the truly radical nature of the people Trump is nominating.
When pressed today, the nominee to be Ambassador to South Africa refuses to oppose reinstituting laws to prevent black people from voting in America. pic.twitter.com/byetPqJPqU
— Chris Murphy 🟧 (@ChrisMurphyCT) October 23, 2025
"You will not share your personal views on whether it is right or wrong to reinstitute discriminatory policies in this country to prevent Black people from voting?" Murphy pressed.
"Senator, my personal views are irrelevant," Bozell insisted. "I am serving here to do what the president is asking me to do in South Africa."
Murphy rejected this premise, however, and informed Bozell that the entire point of the Senate confirmation process was to learn more about a nominee's personal views so that senators can make informed decisions about their qualifications.
"We wouldn't have this process if your personal views were not relevant," Murphy said. "That is pretty stunning that you will not share your views, not only on whether we should have a refugee admissions process that is race-based, but you won't share your personal views on whether we should reimpose discriminatory treatment against Black Americans. That is absolutely relevant to your qualifications to serve. And your refusal to answer it, I hope, is something that every member of this committee will think about."
Commenting on the exchange afterward, Murphy wrote on Bluesky that Bozell's answers to his questions offer "a window into the truly radical nature of the people Trump is nominating."
Trump has falsely accused the South African government of committing "genocide" against its white citizens, and his administration has given white South Africans priority for resettlement in the US.
South Africa has a long history of racial injustice, as the apartheid system that lasted for more than four decades in the country brutally oppressed its majority Black population to ensure white minority rule.
Several wealthy Trump backers, including Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Palantir founder Peter Thiel, and venture capitalist David Sacks, were all either born in or spent time growing up in South Africa when it was still under the apartheid regime.
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A Counter-Campaign for Democracy from Below
How the left can fight Trump’s authoritarian crackdown.
Oct 10, 2025
President Donald Trump is done pretending. In the past few weeks, the administration has made its intentions plain: Critics will be punished, media will be silenced, and the left will be targeted as an enemy to be crushed.
The pattern is crystal clear. As of this writing, at least 145 people have been fired or suspended across K-12, universities, corporations, and nonprofits for exercising freedom of speech related to Charlie Kirk’s death. In one of the highest profile examples, The Jimmy Kimmel Show was briefly suspended after a tame joke.
Trump has openly threatened to strip licenses from broadcasters that dare criticize him. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Commissioner Brendan Carr, a longtime opponent of net neutrality and author of the telecommunications section of Project 2025, is saying coercive things such as, “These companies can find ways to change conduct to take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.” He has stated that reporting that critiques him is illegal, demonstrating a clear opposition to the First Amendment.
These moves come as he has run over university students for exercising free speech such as Mahmoud Khalil, invaded majority Black cities like DC and Chicago with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other law enforcement agents connected to a massive deportation machine, and directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to prosecute his political rivals despite a lack of evidence.
The Authoritarian Playbook
Trump’s crackdown isn’t just about silencing dissent—it’s about shoring up his base through racism. The administration has turned Charlie Kirk into a martyr of white grievance, celebrated openly by white supremacists. It is attacking immigrants and poor people to justify ICE raids and threats to Medicaid and SNAP. This is the oldest trick in the authoritarian playbook: Use racism to divide, then use division to dismantle democracy. Groups like Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) organize the white working and middle class because we are clear that we have more to gain by rejecting this politics of scapegoating and joining a multiracial fight for freedom.
How do we build a mass movement that isn’t just symbolic protest but concretely defends and expands democracy to fully meet the needs of the multiracial working class and shift the conditions that led us here?
The Trump administration has been signaling escalation: using RICO charges, injunctions, and going after unions, nonprofits, and movement organizations. This isn’t “cancel culture.” It’s not the “culture of consequences.” It’s authoritarianism. What’s happening now isn’t just an attack on a late-night comedian or a few unlucky workers. It’s a campaign to dismantle the infrastructure of dissent itself.
We’ve seen this before. Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s blacklist destroyed the livelihoods of radicals and artists. COINTELPRO infiltrated and dismantled Black freedom organizations. Each time, repression worked best when the left was fragmented and unprepared. Each time, resistance gained ground when people refused to be isolated by organizing and fighting back together.
So what the hell do we do about it now? How do we build a mass movement that isn’t just symbolic protest but concretely defends and expands democracy to fully meet the needs of the multiracial working class and shift the conditions that led us here?
South Africa: Democracy from Below
For historical inspiration, let’s look to South Africa under apartheid. In 1955, the African National Congress (ANC) and its allies—including socialists, trade unionists, and township organizations—convened the Congress of the People and adopted the Freedom Charter. The Freedom Charter was based on the demands of millions of South Africans, collected by the ANC and allies.
The charter declared, “The people shall govern!” It demanded not just the right to vote, but to publish freely, live without racial segregation, the right to organize unions, and share in the wealth of the land. This was a vision of radical multiracial democracy written under conditions where simply handing out a leaflet could land you in prison.
The South African Communist Party played a central role in pushing the liberation struggle to link democratic rights with economic justice. Despite repression, arrests, and bannings, they built underground newspapers, coordinated legal defense, and organized international solidarity. Their insistence on a mass, united front strategy meant that democracy was never reduced to just elections, but tied to social and economic transformation. The front pushed for inclusion of working people’s demands in the charter.
Even as the apartheid state criminalized dissent through surveillance and treason trials, the Freedom Charter kept alive a positive vision of democracy worth fighting for. And when the system finally cracked in the 1990s, it was that vision that helped shape South Africa’s transition.
What the US Left Must Do
The South African lesson is both simple in concept and hard in making: Repression can be survived if the left insists on turning defense into a broader offense. It means looking beyond this crushing moment to the horizon.
- Make Freedom a Mass Issue. We can’t let Trump define this as a spat among elites. The left should hammer home that attacks on free speech and association aren’t abstract: They mean workers losing jobs for speaking their mind, neighborhoods losing organizations that fight evictions, and entire communities being silenced. Defending these rights is defending bread-and-butter survival.
- Defend the Infrastructure of the Left. The administration is betting that nonprofits, unions, and grassroots groups will fold under pressure. Instead, we need to treat their survival as a collective responsibility. That means legal defense funds, rapid response networks, solidarity actions, and mutual aid across organizations. An injury to one really must be an injury to all.
- Use Elected Allies Aggressively. Progressive elected officials have a role to play beyond issuing statements. They can pass city and state resolutions protecting targeted organizations, refuse cooperation with federal crackdowns, and put the administration on notice that repression will be met with political consequences.
- Escalate and Broaden the Fight. Every authoritarian move should be met with resistance that is both robust and expansive when red lines are crossed. If workers are fired, organize walkouts. If nonprofits are hit with injunctions, mount solidarity strikes and mass protests. The goal is not just to defend ourselves, but to show millions that democracy itself is under attack.
- Build Cross-Movement Solidarity. Democratic Socialists of America, unions, immigrant rights groups, racial justice campaigns—we can’t afford siloed struggles. What we need is a Defend Democracy united front that can mobilize thousands at short notice: rallies outside TV stations, pickets at workplaces where critics are fired, coordinated campaigns against companies that kowtow to White House threats.
- Build a Mass Multiracial Working Class Base. We must organize working class people who have the most to gain from ending authoritarianism into a self-conscious bloc that can drive deep change. This will require confronting white supremacy in order to inoculate against the right’s attempts to divide the working class, and building a shared interest in winning a world where we all live full lives.
Beyond Defense: A Democratic Offensive
For years, SURJ has organized white communities to recognize our collective shared interest in rejecting racism and authoritarian populism. The white working class has more to gain by defending a multiracial democracy that centers tangible public goods than it does by clinging to the false promises of MAGA strongmen. One of the strongest tools the right uses against us is white supremacy to divide the working class and convince white people we have more in common with billionaires than with neighbors. Authoritarianism offers division, scapegoating, and declining standards of living. Multiracial democracy offers solidarity, higher wages, and genuine freedom.
Trump’s strategy is clear: Isolate the left, silence its organizations, and terrify people into submission. Our response must be just as clear: Unite, defend one another, and broaden the fight for real democracy. It can start in the here and now: organizing in cities, counties, and states politically and in the streets.
That means not only resisting repression but demanding more democracy. Public funding and democratic guarantees for independent media. Expanded protections for whistleblowers. Real rights for workers to organize unions without retaliation like the PRO Act.
The choice is between authoritarianism and a revitalized democracy rooted in working-class power. We cannot wait this out. We must have a counter-campaign now —not just to survive, but to fight for the kind of freedom that can’t be canceled.
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Trump to Slash Refugee Numbers to Record Low, With White South Africans Taking Most Spots
While the president spreads false claims about a "genocide" against white people in South Africa, "more than 100,000 refugees from Afghanistan, Sudan, Ukraine, etc." are stranded in refugee camps.
Oct 04, 2025
Reports of the Trump administration's plan to slash refugee admissions to an even lower number than previously stated—with the majority of spots given to white South Africans descended from French and Dutch colonists who arrived in the country in the 17th century—represents "a moral failure and a dark hour for our country," according to one refugee policy expert.
As The New York Times reported late Friday, a presidential determination dated September 30 and signed by President Donald Trump showed that the president aims to cap refugee admissions at 7,500 in 2026—a significant decrease from the 40,000 that he previously discussed with officials, and from the 125,000 cap set by the Biden administration last year.
A White House official told the Times that the refugee limit would be final only after the administration consults with Congress, as it's required to do under the Refugee Act. They added that consultation with the House and Senate Judiciary committees will be possible only after Democrats and Republicans reach a deal to fund the government and end the shutdown that began October 1.
But advocates and Democrats have pointed out in recent days that the White House's deadline for consulting with lawmakers on refugee limits for next year was September 30, before the shutdown began.
As the deadline passed this week, Democratic leaders said that "in open defiance of the law, the Trump administration has failed to schedule the legally required consultation."
“Despite repeated outreach from Democratic and Republican committee staff, the Trump administration has completely discarded its legal obligation, leaving Congress in the dark and refugees in limbo," said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee; Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), ranking member of the Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement; Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee; and Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), ranking member for the Subcommittee on Border Security and Immigration.
The president effectively suspended the US State Department's 40-year-old refugee resettlement program on his first day in office. The program requires refugees fleeing conflict, famine, and persecution to pass background checks and medical exams before entering the country, and often involves yearslong waits in refugee camps before they are resettled in the US.
"What began as a so-called ‘suspension’ has now stretched into an eight-month shutdown, betraying the nation’s promise as a refuge for the oppressed," said the Democrats. "Nearly 130,000 people facing persecution abroad who have already passed the rigorous vetting requirements of our refugee program have been abandoned by this administration, left to languish in refugee camps around the world after being given the promise of safety and a new life in America."
But for white South African farmers, also known as Afrikaners, Trump carved out an exception earlier this year that will reportedly be extended into 2026—allowing them "to skip the line and rigorous vetting as countless others are shut out of the US," said the Democrats.
Trump and his billionaire megadonor, South Africa-born Elon Musk, have helped spread false claims that the country's democratically elected Black government has systematically oppressed white Afrikaners, who enforced a racist apartheid system until 1994, and has allowed white farmers to be murdered—saying white people in the country face a "genocide."
White South Africans hold 20 times the wealth of Black people in the country despite making up just 7% of the population, and control the vast majority of land.
"Poor Black citizens of South Africa are far more likely to be victims of violent crime and murder than white people," wrote Joe Walsh at Current Affairs last year, noting that during one period, "when there were 49 murders on farms across the entire country, one of Cape Town’s predominantly Black townships called Khayelitsha recorded 179 murders, at a rate of approximately 116 per 100,000 people."
While Trump plans to open the door to thousands of white South Africans, said Danilo Zak, director of policy at Church World Service, "more than 100,000 refugees from Afghanistan, Sudan, Ukraine, etc., who have been through years of vetting, approved, [are] now left stranded."
With Trump's determination on refugee numbers "already signed and dated," said Zak, it's impossible for Trump to have completed an "appropriate consultation" with Congress to approve the abandonment of refugees across the world.
Trump previously set a record low number for refugee admissions during his first term, imposing a cap of 15,000 slots for resettlement.
The new plan was reported as the US Supreme Court ruled for the second time in four months in favor of allowing the president to revoke Temporary Protected Status for 300,000 Venezuelans, putting them at risk for deportation—despite an earlier ruling by a federal judge who found Trump had acted illegally when he moved to revoke TPS.
"This decision threatens not only the lives of hundreds of thousands of people who will lose legal status and face deportation,"
said Todd Schulte, president of FWD.us, "but also a basic sense of fairness."
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