White South Africans leave for US under Trump refugee plan
White South Africans leave for US under Trump refugee plan (Photo: AP)
The first white South Africans granted refugee status under a program initiated by US President Donald Trump departed from Johannesburg on Sunday.
A reporter for news agency Reuters described seeing a queue of white citizens with airport trolleys full of luggage waiting to have their passports stamped before they entered the departure lounge.
The US-funded charter plane held 49 passengers, according to a South African transport ministry spokesperson Collen Msibi.
"The application for the permit [to land] said it's the Afrikaners who are relocating to the USA as refugees," Msibi said.
Afrikaners are a white ethnic minority, largely descended from Dutch, German and French settlers. Afrikaner leaders ruled South Africa during the brutal apartheid regime of racial segregation that often saw the violent repression of Black South Africans.
Afrikaners make up nearly 60% of South Africa's white population.
Msibi added that the plane was scheduled to fly to Dulles Airport outside Washington and then on to Texas.
US broadcaster NPR reported earlier in the week that 12 states that had agreed to take in the Afrikaners, some of whom have family in the US.
Why has Trump offered asylum to white South Africans?
Trump, along with his South African-born advisor and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, have been vocal about what they claim is persecution of white South Africans by the country's Black majority.
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This is despite Afrikaners remaining one of the most privileged races in South Africa since apartheid ended 30 years ago.
White South Africans make up around 7% of the country's population. But they still own some 78% of private farmland in South Africa and have about 20 times the wealth of Black South Africans.
Trump signed an executive order in early February that offers resettlement to "Afrikaner refugees" who face "government-sponsored race-based discrimination, including racially discriminatory property confiscation."
This is a reference to a South African land expropriation law that Trump believes will lead to the confiscation of white-owned farms.
South Africa's new law is supposed to redress inequalities entrenched under the former apartheid system.
How many Afrikaners are migrating to the US?
In March, the US State Department said it had received some 8,000 inquires by white South Africans for resettlement.
As many as 1,000 Afrikaners could be admitted to the United States this year, the Trump administration said.
South African transport ministry spokesperson Msibi said his department hadn't received any other application for further resettlement flights.
The rapid pathway for resettlement offered to Afrikaners is in stark contrast to the normal refugee process, which can take years.
The Trump administration has also stopped virtually all other refugee admissions under an executive order signed by Trump as one of his first acts as president.
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