#USA #DC – The United States has admitted no Christian refugees from the countries where believers faced the most severe persecution during fiscal year 2026, according to a report released in early September by Open Doors US and World Relief. Recent figures have shown zero refugees resettled from 29,000 admitted in 2024.
The joint analysis, titled “State of the Golden Door,” found that not a single refugee fleeing religious persecution from the 50 nations on Open Doors’ 2026 World Watch List was resettled through the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program. Fiscal 2026 ends Sept. 30th. The organizations described the outcome as the first such year in at least a quarter century and possibly since the modern refugee program began.
By comparison, more than 29,000 Christians from those same 50 countries had been admitted in fiscal 2024. Overall refugee arrivals in 2026 were expected to total between 11,000 and 16,000, far below recent peaks. The Trump administration had paused the broader program after taking office and later set a low annual ceiling. An emergency increase raised the cap to 17,500, with the added slots reserved almost entirely for Afrikaners from South Africa. Only three other refugees from a Watch List country—Afghanistan—were admitted; they were not religious minorities.
“The U.S. has essentially taken this golden door and closed it,” World Relief CEO Myal Greene said at a Capitol event marking the report’s release. He noted that 388 million Christians worldwide faced high levels of persecution, one in seven believers globally, and that more than 224,000 had been displaced for their faith in the latest reporting period. “We have more Christians facing persecution than ever recorded, and it’s at a time when the U.S. is taking less action, since the start of the refugee program, to welcome persecuted Christians.”
Asylum outcomes also declined. Grant rates for applicants from the 50 Watch List countries fell from 58 percent in fiscal 2023 to 10 percent in the first nine months of fiscal 2026. The report criticized the administration’s early freeze on refugee processing and its emphasis on a single population that did not rank among the worst countries for religious persecution.
Open Doors data for the 2026 World Watch List, covering October 2024 through September 2025, recorded 4,849 Christians killed for their faith—3,490 of them in Nigeria—and widespread attacks on churches and communities across sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Syria rose sharply on the list after political upheaval. The watchdogs said they were not calling for unlimited admissions or weakened screening, but they urged restoration of a priority category for those fleeing religious persecution, a policy that had existed in the president’s first term.
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The next presidential determination, covering fiscal 2027, is due shortly after the report appeared. The Trump administration had recently considered resettling and accepting persecuted Jews interested in fleeing Canada due to claims of a rise of anti-Jewish attacks in that country. Similar protections, for the hundreds-of-thousands of Christians worldwide were not shared.
Cover Image: President Trump seen at the creation of the Religious Liberty Commission in 2025.
