Story highlights The United States plans to admit no more than 45,000 refugees in the coming year

After taking office President Trump signed an executive order temporarily halting refugee admissions

(CNN) The Trump administration announced Wednesday it will dramatically reduce the number of refugees allowed to resettle in the United States, bringing the number to less than half of what former President Barack Obama had proposed for the current fiscal year.

The US plans to admit no more than 45,000 refugees in the coming year, with regional caps of 19,000 for Africa, 17,500 for the Near East and South Asia (which includes most Middle Eastern countries), 5,000 for East Asia, 2,000 for Europe and Central Asia, and 1,500 for Latin America and the Caribbean.

Unlike in previous years, this cap does not include a so-called "unallocated reserve" quota for the administration to respond to unforeseen upticks in refugees within one of the regions, a State Department official confirmed to CNN.

"The security and safety of the American people is our chief concern," one senior US government official told reporters on a conference call, later adding that the number is "consistent with our foreign policy goals and operational capacity in light of additional security vetting procedures that we are implementing, and the domestic asylum backlog that (the Department of Homeland Security) is currently facing."

The new cap is the lowest in decades for the US refugee admission program and marks an especially steep decline from recent years.

Read More