‘Mission South Africa': How Trump is offering white Afrikaners refugee status

Boston Globe

30-03-2025

Under Phase One of the program, the United States has deployed multiple teams to convert commercial office space in Pretoria, the capital of South Africa, into ad hoc refugee centers, according to the documents. The teams are studying more than 8,200 requests expressing interest in resettling to the United States and have already identified 100 Afrikaners who could be approved for refugee status. The government officials have been directed to focus particularly on screening white Afrikaner farmers.
The administration has also provided security escorts to officials conducting the interviews of potential refugees.
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By mid-April, US officials on the ground in South Africa will 'propose long-term solutions, to ensure the successful implementation of the president's vision for the dignified resettlement of eligible Afrikaner applicants,' according to one memo sent from the embassy in Pretoria to the State Department in Washington this month.
The administration's focus on white Afrikaners comes as it effectively bans the entry of other refugees — including about 20,000 people from countries such as Afghanistan, Congo, and Syria who were ready to travel to the United States before Trump took office. In court filings about those other refugees, the administration has argued that core functions of the refugee program had been 'terminated' after the president's ban, so it did not have the resources to take in any more people.
'There's no subtext and nothing subtle about the way this administration's immigration and refugee policy has obvious racial and racist overtones,' said Vanessa Cárdenas, executive director of America's Voice. 'While they seek to single out Afrikaners for special treatment, they simultaneously want us to think mostly Black and brown vetted newcomers are dangerous despite their background checks and all evidence to the contrary.'
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The program also inserts the United States into a charged debate inside South Africa, where some members of the white Afrikaner minority have begun a campaign to suggest that they are the true victims in post-apartheid South Africa. Under apartheid, a white minority government discriminated against South Africans of color, and brutality and violence flourished, leading to torture, disappearances, and murder.
There have been murders of white farmers, the focus of the Afrikaner grievances, but police statistics show they are not any more vulnerable to violent crime than others in the country. In South Africa, more than 90 percent of the population comes from racial groups persecuted by the racist apartheid regime.
In a statement, the State Department said it was focused on resettling Afrikaners who have been 'victims of unjust racial discrimination.' The agency confirmed that it had begun interviewing applicants and said they would need to pass 'stringent background and security checks.'
The decision to unleash resources for Afrikaners just starting the refugee process, while stonewalling court demands to process those fleeing other countries who have already been cleared for travel, risks upending an American refugee program that has been the foundation of the United States' role for the vulnerable, according to resettlement officials.
'The government clearly has the ability to process applications when it wants to,' said Melissa Keaney, a senior supervising attorney for the International Refugee Assistance Project, the group representing plaintiffs trying to restart refugee processing.
Trump signed an executive order suspending refugee admissions on his first day in office, arguing that welcoming refugees could compromise resources for Americans. He added that future versions of the program should prioritize 'only those refugees who can fully and appropriately assimilate into the United States.'
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A federal judge in Seattle later temporarily blocked that executive order and instructed the administration to restore the refugee program. But the Trump administration still cut contracts with organizations that assist those applying for refugee status overseas, reducing the infrastructure needed to support people seeking refuge in the United States.
An appeals court ruled last week that the administration must admit those thousands of people who were granted refugee status before Trump entered office, but also declined to stop him from halting the admission of new refugees.
The Justice Department has for weeks deflected demands from refugee advocates accusing the administration of sidestepping the court order and delaying the process of almost every refugee previously granted a ticket to come to the United States. The Trump administration has said it has allowed a limited number of refugees who were vetted to enter the country, although the State Department declined to provide a number.
Lawyers for the Justice Department have argued both that the administration now lacks resources to help thousands of refugees and that in restarting the program the government reserves the right to 'do so in a manner that reflects administration priorities.'
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