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Global News
12-05-2025
- Politics
- Global News
First group of white South Africans lands in U.S. under Trump refugee plan
A cohort of 49 South Africans left the country on Saturday for the U.S. on a privately chartered plane after being granted refugee status by the Trump administration as part of an anti-discrimination program announced in February. The group, which included families and small children, was due to arrive at Dulles International Airport outside Washington D.C. on Monday morning local time, according to Collen Msibi, a spokesperson for South Africa's transport ministry. They are the first Afrikaners, an ethnic group of predominantly Dutch and French descent whose ancestors settled in South Africa in the 17th century, to be relocated to the U.S. after President Trump issued an executive order on Feb. 7, accusing South Africa's Black-led government of racial discrimination against the group and announcing a program to relocate them. Story continues below advertisement 'In shocking disregard of its citizens' rights, the Republic of South Africa (South Africa) recently enacted Expropriation Act 13 of 2024 (Act), to enable the government of South Africa to seize ethnic minority Afrikaners' agricultural property without compensation,' the Trump administration executive order states. The South African government vehemently denies that Afrikaners are being discriminated against, and called the Trump administration's claim 'completely false,' adding that it paints an unrepresentative picture of the country. In a press conference on Monday, when asked about the incoming group of Afrikaners, whom the U.S. has chosen to welcome as refugees at a time when the country is also executing mass deportations of foreign nationals, many of whom hold legal status in the country, Trump said it's because 'they are being killed, and we don't want to see people be killed.' Trump added that he will meet with South African leaders next week to discuss the issue further. Story continues below advertisement 'South Africa leadership is coming to see me, I understand sometime next week, and we are supposed to have, I guess, a G20 meeting there or something. But we're having a G20 meeting, I don't know how we can go unless that situation is taken care of,' he told reporters, adding that the South African government's treatment of Afrikaners amounts to genocide. Get daily National news Get the day's top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day. Sign up for daily National newsletter Sign Up By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy 'It's a genocide that's taking place that you people don't wanna write about, but it's a terrible thing that is taking place, and farmers are being killed, they happen to be white, but whether they're white or Black, makes no difference to me, but white farmers are being brutally killed and their land is being confiscated in South Africa, and the newspapers and the media and television media doesn't even talk about it. If it were the other way round, they'd talk about it, that would be the only story they'd talk about,' he continued. The president did not elaborate on this claim, nor did he provide any evidence of a genocide against the group. 'I don't care who they are, I don't care about their race, their colour, I don't care about their height, their weight, I don't care about anything, I just know that what's happening is terrible,' he went on. 'I have people that live in South Africa, they say it's a terrible situation taking place, so we've essentially extended citizenship to those people to escape from that violence and come here,' the president concluded. Story continues below advertisement View image in full screen Newly arrived South Africans wait to hear welcome statements from U.S. government officials in a hangar at Atlantic Aviation Dulles near Washington Dulles International Airport on May 12, 2025, in Dulles, Virginia. Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images According to South African authorities, Afrikaners are among 'the most economically privileged' people in the nation. There are around 2.7 million Afrikaners among South Africa's population of 62 million, which is more than 80 per cent Black. Hence, despite being a minority, many in South Africa, given its fraught racial history, are confused by claims that white Afrikaners are being persecuted and meet the requirements to be refugees. View image in full screen The first group of Afrikaners from South Africa to arrive for resettlement listens to remarks from US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau and US Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Troy Edgar (both out of frame), after they arrived at Washington Dulles International Airport in Dulles, Virginia, on May 12, 2025. Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images) There are many successful Afrikaner business leaders, some hold cabinet minister positions in government, and their language, Afrikaans, is widely spoken — including by non-Afrikaners — and is recognized as an official language. Story continues below advertisement Nonetheless, Trump and his South African-born colleague, Elon Musk, accused the country's government in February of implementing racist anti-white laws and economic policies that disproportionately impact rural Afrikaner farmers. The claims are founded on a relatively small number of violent farm attacks and robberies on white people in rural communities, but the U.S. alleges the attacks are racially motivated, and that the South African government is 'fuelling' them by allowing anti-white rhetoric to circulate and not providing sufficient protection to white Afrikaners. The government says those claims are false, has condemned the farm attacks, and says their cause is being purposefully falsified. Violent attacks on farm owners in South Africa have been a problem for years, but instances represent a small percentage of the country's extremely high violent crime rates, which affect all races. The government says there is no targeting of white people in South Africa and no persecution, and farm attacks are part of its struggles with violent crime. — With files from The Associated Press
Epoch Times
12-05-2025
- Politics
- Epoch Times
First Group of White South Africans Depart for US Under Trump Admin's Refugee Plan
Dozens of white South Africans departed their country for the United States on May 11 after being granted refugee status under the Trump administration's new admission program. About 49 Afrikaners—a white ethnic minority in South Africa—boarded a chartered flight bound for the District of Columbia, which will then fly to Texas, South African Transport Department spokesperson Collen Msibi said. 'One of the conditions of the permit was to ensure that they were vetted in case one of them has a criminal issue pending,' Msibi was quoted as saying by Reuters. The Epoch Times has reached out to the State Department for comment but did not receive a response by publication time. This marked the first group of Afrikaners relocated to the United States under a refugee admissions program initiated under President Donald Trump's Feb. 7 executive That executive order was issued after South African President Cyril Ramaphosa Related Stories 3/17/2025 3/7/2025 The nation's government noted that special conditions must be met before expropriating land, including that it has had longtime informal occupants, is unused and owned purely for speculation, or was left abandoned. In his executive order, Trump stated that Ramaphosa's government has imposed countless policies 'designed to dismantle equal opportunity in employment, education, and business, and hateful rhetoric and government actions fueling disproportionate violence against racially disfavored landowners.' South Africa's government has rejected the claims and called Washington's move to resettle South Africans as refugees 'entirely politically motivated.' 'We reiterate that allegations of discrimination are unfounded,' it However, the South African government said that it will not block departures of citizens who seek to leave the country, provided they comply with domestic laws. Speaking to reporters on May 9, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller 'What was happening in South Africa fits the textbook definition of why the refugee program was created,' Miller said. 'This is persecution based on a protected characteristic. In this case, race.' Trump The White House Reuters and Jacob Burg contributed to this report.
Free Malaysia Today
12-05-2025
- Politics
- Free Malaysia Today
First white South Africans board plane for US under Trump refugee plan
President Donald Trump's claim that minority white South Africans face discrimination has become orthodoxy for the far right. (AP pic) JOHANNESBURG : The first white South Africans granted refugee status under a programme initiated by US President Donald Trump boarded a plane to leave from the country's main international airport in Johannesburg on Sunday. A queue of white citizens with airport trolleys full of luggage, much of it wrapped in theft-proof cellophane, waited to have their passports stamped, a Reuters reporter saw, before they entered the departure lounge for their charter flight. 'One of the conditions of the permit was to ensure that they were vetted in case one of them has a criminal issue pending,' South African transport department spokesperson Collen Msibi told Reuters, adding that 49 passengers had been cleared. Journalists were not granted access to those headed to the US. Msibi said they were due to fly to Dulles Airport just outside Washington, DC, and then on to Texas. They had boarded the plane but not yet left as of 8.30pm Trump's offer of asylum to white South Africans, especially Afrikaners – the group with the longest history among white settlers in South Africa and who make up the bulk of whites – has been divisive in both countries. In the US, it comes as the Trump administration has blocked mostly non-white refugee admissions from the rest of the world. In South Africa, it coincides with heightened racial tensions over land and jobs that have dogged domestic politics since the end of white minority rule. Despite a wider freeze on refugees, Trump called on the US to prioritise resettling Afrikaners, descendants of mostly Dutch early settlers, saying they were 'victims of unjust racial discrimination'. The granting of refugee status to white South Africans – who have remained by far the most privileged race since apartheid ended 30 years ago – has been met with a mixture of alarm and ridicule by South African authorities, who say the Trump administration has waded into a domestic political issue it does not understand. Three decades since Nelson Mandela ushered democracy into South Africa, the white minority that ruled it has managed to retain most of the wealth that was amassed under colonialism and apartheid. Whites still own three quarters of private land and about 20 times the wealth of the black majority, according to the Review of Political Economy, an international academic journal. Whites are also the race least affected by joblessness. Yet the claim that minority white South Africans face discrimination from the black majority has been repeated so often in online chatrooms that is has become orthodoxy for the far right, and has been echoed by Trump's white South African-born ally Elon Musk.
Eyewitness News
12-05-2025
- Politics
- Eyewitness News
SA transport officials detail flight plan for aircraft carrying 49 Afrikaners relocating to US
JOHANNESBURG - South African transport officials have detailed the flight plan for an aircraft carrying 49 Afrikaners relocating to the United States (US) as part of Washington's refugee programme. The private charter flight finally took off late Sunday night after a three-hour delay that kept Texas-based Omni Airways on the tarmac longer than expected. The cause of the delay is unknown at this stage. ALSO READ: Almost 50 white Afrikaners on board flight to US as part of resettlement programme This is the first group of Afrikaners who have been admitted to the US under refugee status after US President Donald Trump signed an executive order allowing them to resettle amid a disinformation campaign about racial laws in South Africa. The Department of Transport said there is limited leeway to allow for delays because a chartered flight has to follow a strict flight plan. Department spokesperson Collen Msibi said the application for the use of a chartered plane is processed by the International Air Services Council. He said these plans are made to ensure that there are no clashes in the use of airspace. Despite the delay, the aircraft is believed to have kept to its planned approved route. 'It goes to Dakar, where they have to refuel. I think they are going to spend about an hour refuelling and then from Dakar then they head to Washington, Dallas airport in Washington DC, and thereafter, the flight proceeds to Texas.' Msibi said the department has not received any other application for a similar process yet.
The South African
12-05-2025
- The South African
Catching private flights: How SA 'refugees' left the country
The United States (US) is set to receive the very first group of South African Afrikaner refugees, after they departed SA on Sunday evening, 11 May. The group, made up of 49 white South Africans, boarded a private plane which arrived from Texas, to transport the refugees to their new home. According to IOL , the national Department of Transport (DOT) revealed that an application for a permit for this chartered airplane was recently approved by the International Air Services Council. A spokesperson for the DOT, Collen Msibi, who was also at OR Tambo International Airport on Sunday night, revealed to Newzroom Afrika that a strict process was followed for the airplane to be permitted into South Africa, and it would continue to be monitored as it makes its way to the US. Msibi also said that a number of aspects was checked by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) before the plane could enter SA, including the technical provisions of the flight being used, as well as a proper check on the documentation of the crew members. The operator of the plane also had to submit a flight plan to the Air Traffic and Navigation Services (ATNS) in order to alert the relevant authorities of the private plane coming into South Africa's air space from the US. 'That was done and they are quite aware of what is happening. This flight comes from Texas and it went through Dakar (Senegal), and to OR Tambo International Airport. As it takes off, it is gonna go the same route – OR Tambo, Dakar, Washington DC then back to Texas. Basically that is the route that they are taking,' Msibi said, as per IOL. Let us know by leaving a comment below, or send a WhatsApp to 060 011 021 1 Subscribe to The South African website's newsletters and follow us on WhatsApp, Facebook, X and Bluesky for the latest news.
