Trump plans US refuge for 17,500 white South Africans amid backlash
The Trump administration plans to admit up to 17,500 refugees to the United States, mostly white South Africans, under a policy outlined to Congress as part of a wider reshaping of a programme that was once used to help people fleeing war and persecution around the world.
In a notice to Congress on Tuesday, obtained by The Associated Press, the administration said white South Africans faced seizures of their land and other forms of persecution, and said they would be likely to assimilate in the US. The South African government has repeatedly rejected the claim that Afrikaners are a persecuted minority in the country.
The administration said it intended to spend about USD 500 million to resettle the new arrivals in the US. The refugee programme, which had long enjoyed bipartisan support and welcomed tens of thousands of refugees from different parts of the world, has now been recast by the administration as a route to resettle white South Africans in America.
Organisations that have traditionally helped refugees settle in the US criticised the decision to once again limit the programme to white South Africans. “For more than four decades, America’s refugee program has provided a lifesaving pathway for people fleeing violence and persecution,” Naomi Steinberg, HIAS vice president for refugee and immigration policy and advocacy, said in a statement.
“But again, this administration is diminishing and distorting this legacy in service of its political whims. That is why we will never stop speaking out for a return to a program that welcomes refugees from around the world who have been persecuted because of who they are and what they believe,” she said.
US presidents set the annual cap for refugee admissions, and those numbers have historically been distributed across different geographic regions, taking into account wars and conflicts that create humanitarian need. HIAS said an average of 92,000 people a year have been admitted to the US since the programme began in 1980.
Last year, the Trump administration initially fixed the cap at 7,500, again predominantly Afrikaners, but later raised it to 17,500 after saying that “unforeseen developments in South Africa created an emergency refugee situation”. During his first term, Trump sharply cut annual refugee admissions. The Biden administration later rebuilt the system and set a goal of admitting 125,000 refugees in Biden’s final year in office.
After returning to the White House, Trump immediately suspended the refugee programme, leaving stranded people around the world who had been approved to come to the US. The administration later reopened the programme, but limited it to white South Africans.
Afrikaners are descendants of mainly Dutch and French colonial settlers who first arrived in South Africa in the 17th century. They are one of the country’s white minorities, alongside white South Africans of British descent. Afrikaners were central to the apartheid system of racial segregation from 1948 to 1994, when Nelson Mandela became South Africa’s first Black president after the country’s first democratic all-race elections. While their leading role in apartheid has left some lingering racial tensions, Afrikaners have generally embraced South Africa’s multiracial democracy like most other South Africans.
The latest move therefore keeps the US refugee programme focused on white South Africans, even as the administration argues they face persecution and critics say it is narrowing a system that has historically served refugees from across the world.
