US diplomats asked if non-whites qualify for Trump refugee programme for South Africans

The Herald

2 days ago

The internal back-and-forth between the embassy and the state department, which hasn't been previously reported, illustrates the confusion about how to implement a policy designed to help white Afrikaners in a racially diverse country that includes mixed-race people who speak Afrikaans and whites who speak English.
To date the state department has resettled 88 South Africans under the programme, including the initial group of 59 who arrived in May. Another 15 are expected to arrive by the end of August, one source said. Trump, a Republican who recaptured the White House pledging a wide-ranging immigration crackdown, placed an indefinite freeze on refugee admissions from around the world after taking office, saying the US would only admit refugees who 'can fully and appropriately assimilate'.
Weeks later he issued an executive order that called for the US to resettle Afrikaners, describing them as victims of 'violence against racially disfavoured landowners', allegations that echoed far-right claims which have been contested by government.
Since the executive order, US diplomats working to implement the programme have been deliberating internally about which racial groups could be considered eligible, one source said.
In the July 8 cable, Greene laid out a summary of the different ethnic and racial groups in the country before seeking guidance on eligibility. In addition to Afrikaners and mixed-race South Africans, Greene mentioned indigenous South Africans known as the Khoisan people.
He said members of the Jewish community had also expressed interest, but in South Africa they are considered a religious minority and not a racial group.
'In the absence of other guidance, [the US embassy] intends to give consideration to well-founded claims of persecution based on race for other racial minorities,' Greene wrote.
At least one family identified as coloured has travelled to the US as refugees, two people familiar with the matter said.
The cable forced the administration to clarify its position on whether the policy is for whites only, and if it does include other aggrieved minorities, who would qualify, two people familiar with the matter said.
Chretien, a conservative who wrote op-eds promoting the Heritage Foundation's 'Project 2025" plan to overhaul the federal government, is the senior official at the state department's bureau of population, refugees, and migration.