The United States (US) is on course to record its first year in at least a quarter-century without resettling a refugee from any of the 50 countries identified by Open Doors as having the most severe persecution of Christians.

This is according to a new report by World Relief and Open Doors US, two Christian-based humanitarian organisations.

The organisations have published their fourth joint annual State of the Golden Door report. This looks at the openness of the US to receiving persecuted Christians. “Throughout its 250-year history as a nation,” the report notes, “the US has, for many, represented a ‘golden door’ to freedom, including religious freedom, as described by Emma Lazarus and inscribed on the Statue of Liberty. This report’s iterations have shown over the years how the US’s refugee resettlement and asylum processes have provided needed haven for Christians and other religious minorities who have had to flee their homes.”

It says that, with the 2026 US federal fiscal year coming to an end, no Christian refugees from those 50 countries had been resettled through the US Refugee Admissions Program. The report notes that aside from South African refugees, only three had been admitted from elsewhere in the world. These three hailed from Afghanistan, and these were confirmed not to have been Christians or indeed members of another religious minority.

The finding comes against a sharp increase in the number of Christians worldwide identified as facing persecution or discrimination.

Open Doors’s 2026 World Watch List, cited in the report, puts the number at more than 388 million Christians, or about one in seven Christians worldwide. The report says this is the highest figure recorded and compares with 280 million in 2020.

It adds that during 2025 (the period covered by the latest World Watch List), at least 4 849 Christians were killed because of their faith, while more than 224 000 fled their homes because of persecution. Persecution includes restrictions on worship, harassment, and killings of Christians. Persecution is driven by religious nationalism, authoritarian governments, ethnic and clan-based oppression, organised crime and corruption.

The decline in Christian refugee resettlement is particularly pronounced when compared with recent years.

According to the report’s figures, substantial numbers of Christian refugees from the 50 countries on the 2026 Open Doors World Watch List were resettled in the US annually. Between 2015 and 2024, the numbers varied between a low of 5 378 in 2020 and a high of 32 251 in 2016. In 2025, there had been 9 916 who entered. None arrived in 2026.

The report presented moving testimonies from Christians who had found refuge in the US. These include one from “Shamlo”, who fled Taliban rule in Afghanistan (this newspaper has reported on the circumstances for Christians in this country) and arrived in the US in 2024. “If we are going to follow Jesus,” Shamlo said, “we should care about our brothers and sisters all across the world – anyone fleeing persecution to find protection and refuge.”

The Trump administration has taken a hard line on migration, drastically cutting and realigning the intake of refugees. He has also, rarely for a US president, spoken about Christian persecution, and launched military action against jihadi groups in Nigeria that have targeted Christians.