One of the biggest differences between the administrations of President Donald Trump and his predecessor, former President Joe Biden, is their handling of immigration, both legal and illegal, including the admission and resettlement of foreign refugees into the United States.

The Trump administration's State Department recently revealed that it has slashed the total number of refugees to be accepted and resettled by nearly 100% for Fiscal Year 2026, according to Breitbart.

The dramatic reduction of the refugee resettlement program is expected to save taxpayers tens of billions of dollars annually, and is just a small part of Trump's broader efforts to effectively end illegal immigration while also further restricting legal avenues of entry for migrants.

Refugee resettlement program slashed

On President Trump's first day in office, he issued an executive order to temporarily suspend the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, pending a realignment with his America First policies.

In accordance with that order, the State Department has now announced that the FY2026 cap on refugee admissions will be 7,500, a reduction of approximately 94% from the annual cap of 125,000 that was in place under former President Biden.

"The Biden administration waged a campaign to import millions of migrants into the United States by any means available, including by abusing the refugee admissions system against the wishes of the American people," State Department spokesman Tommy Piggott told Breitbart. "The results were disastrous, straining the resources of local communities and costing taxpayers tens of billions of dollars."

"The Trump administration has delivered on its mandate to secure our border and to end the era of mass immigration forced on our country by the Biden administration," he added. "President Trump has ended the abuse of the refugee admissions system, which Biden used to fuel mass migration during the worst border crisis in American history."

Biden ramps up admissions

According to the "final numbers" for former President Biden, the number of refugee admissions surged in comparison to President Trump's first term in office, and though Biden never did reach the "ambitious" 125,000 annual cap, it wasn't for a lack of trying.

In all, Biden granted refugee status to nearly 223,000 migrants during his tenure in office, for a monthly average of more than 4,700 -- roughly 157% higher than the 1,845 monthly average under Trump, who only admitted around 86,000 refugees over his first four years.

That included more than 25,000 refugees in FY2022, more than 60,000 in FY2023, and just over 100,000 in FY2024.

According to the Migrant Policy Institute, Biden's refugee numbers for FY2024 were the highest in three decades, nearly matching the inflated admissions numbers from the early to mid-1990s under former Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

Biden program cost taxpayers at least $20B

As exposed last year by the OpenTheBooks watchdog group, refugee care under the Biden administration was a costly expenditure for American taxpayers, totaling nearly $20 billion for just FY2022 and 2023 in congressionally authorized funding and grants.

Those taxpayer funds were used and abused for a wide variety of purposes, including the typical provision of food, housing, and healthcare for refugees and their families, but also for cash handouts, education, legal assistance, and even loans to purchase personal vehicles or start up a small business, among other things.

A pertinent quote at that time came from Roger Severino, who served as the director of the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Civil Rights during the first Trump administration, and who told OpenTheBooks that HHS and the Office of Refugee Resettlement under Biden had "forgotten their original refugee-resettlement mission and instead have provided a panoply of free programs that incentivize people to come to the U.S. illegally."