BY  :   Ryan Foley, Christian Post Reporter

WASHINGTON — The United States is on track to admit zero Christians fleeing from the world’s worst countries for persecution in fiscal year 2026, according to a new report from the global watchdog Open Doors and the Evangelical refugee resettlement agency World Relief.

The organizations unveiled their new report Thursday at the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center, documenting the state of Christian persecution worldwide and the number of refugees admitted into the U.S.

The release comes one month before the Trump administration is set to determine the number of refugees to be admitted to the country in fiscal year 2027, which begins Oct. 1.

“The U.S. has essentially taken this golden door and closed it,” asserted World Relief CEO Myal Greene at Thursday’s event.

The report, titled “State of the Golden Door: Evaluating U.S. Refugee Resettlement and Asylum in Light of Global Christian Persecution,” states that the number of refugee admissions from the 50 countries on the 2026 Open Doors World Watch List had plummeted to zero in fiscal year 2026, which concludes at the end of the month.

While the report primarily focused on persecuted Christians, it acknowledged that the halt on refugee resettlement during the Trump administration has applied to all religious minorities in those countries, not just Christians.

“Only three refugees were resettled from a country on the Open Doors World Watch List, and those individuals were not religious minorities,” the report states. “We can conclude with a high degree of confidence that in FY2026, no refugees experiencing religious persecution will be resettled in the U.S.”

The report is critical of President Donald Trump’s designation of an “invasion” at the southern border, his halting of all refugee resettlement in a January 2025 executive order and the administration’s implementation of guidance encouraging enforcement officials to “remove any noncitizens attempting to enter either at or between ports of entry even if they were attempting to seek asylum.”

Although refugees have been admitted to the U.S. in fiscal year 2026, the Trump administration has prioritized the resettlement of white South Africans whom it describes as “victims of unjust racial discrimination.”

The title of the report refers to a phrase in the poem on the base of the Statue of Liberty describing the U.S. as having a “golden door” that is “open to those yearning to breathe free, including free from religious persecution.”

While refugees are vetted overseas and seek entry into the U.S. from a third country typically near their home country, asylum seekers present themselves at a port of entry in the United States and say that they have experienced persecution in their home country and they’re requesting asylum.

Statistics in the report reveal that the asylum approval rate for countries on the World Watch List decreased from 58% in fiscal year 2023 to 10% in fiscal year 2026.

As fiscal year 2026 is on track to be the first year in at least a quarter century when not a single Christian refugee was admitted to the U.S., Open Doors estimates that 388 million Christians faced persecution worldwide — one out of every seven Christians around the globe.

Open Doors CEO Ryan Brown said “the breadth of persecution” and “the depth of persecution” against Christians have increased.

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