Multiple people, including human rights lawyers, immigration academics, civil rights activists and a Democratic senator, have criticized President Donald Trump for giving white Afrikaans from South Africa refugee status.
Why It Matters
Trump swept into office on a promise of giving the U.S. immigration system an overhaul, including taking a look at refugee admissions.
The move to allow refugee status to the South Africans comes after, on the first day of Trump’s second term, the president suspended the State Department’s refugee admissions program.
He said at the time that the U.S. “lacks the ability to absorb large numbers of migrants, and in particular, refugees, into its communities in a manner that does not compromise the availability of resources for Americans, that protects their safety and security, and that ensures the appropriate assimilation of refugees.”
The admission of the white Afrikaners comes as most of those seeking refugee admission from other parts of the world have been blocked by the administration.
Newsweek has contacted the Department of Health and Human Services, via email, for comment.
AP
What To Know
The first group of white South Africans are set to arrive in the U.S. on Monday at Dulles Airport just outside Washington, D.C., The New York Times reported.
It is part of a specific resettlement program that came after Trump signed an executive order saying “Afrikaner refugees escaping government-sponsored race-based discrimination, including racially discriminatory property confiscation.”
Civil rights activist Al Sharpton was one of several who has criticized the move, calling it “as blatantly as double standards as one can get.”
He was discussing the arrest of Democratic Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, who was taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in New Jersey. The mayor and other lawmakers were seen outside Delaney Hall, an ICE detention center, on Friday urging federal officials to allow them inside to observe conditions.
Talking on MSNBC, Sharpton said: “The mayor of a city where people are being held, without due process in many cases. So she has the right to say: ‘Wait a minute, I wanna know what’s going on here. Why are people being held without due process?’
“Now you contrast that at the same time The New York Times is saying that President Trump is saying to white Afrikaners from South Africa: ‘ll give you refugee status.’
“So we’re bringing in white Afrikaners, who we don’t know if they’re criminals. We don’t know what they went through in the legal process in South Africa.”
He continued: “But people right here in Newark—we’re gonna assume they’re all criminals. We’re gonna bring them out and if the mayor wants to say ‘wait a minute let’s have due process’ lock him up he’s trespassing. It is as blatantly as double standards as one can get.”
Democratic Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen wrote in a post on X: “Trump and Musk are about to give refugee status to 60 white South Africans — who do not need it — while Trump locks up and deports refugees here who face genuine dangers in other countries. This is the sick global apartheid policy being adopted by this lawless administration.”
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a former immigration lawyer who is now a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, a nonprofit organization, also posted about the new program.
“Normally refugees have to pay for their own travel to the U.S. by taking out travel loans which have to be paid back,” he said. “Trump has fully suspended the refugee program for all other people in the world; except for White South Africans, who he’s flying here at taxpayer expense.”
White House deputy chief of staff and homeland security adviser Stephen Miller defended the move on Friday, saying: “What’s happening in South Africa fits the textbook definition of why the refugee program was created. This is race-based persecution. The refugee program is not intended as a solution for global poverty, and historically, it has been used that way.”
What People Are Saying
South Africa’s Ministry of International Relations and Cooperation said in a statement on Friday: “It is most regrettable that it appears that the resettlement of South Africans to the United States under the guise of being ‘refugees’ is entirely politically motivated and designed to question South Africa’s constitutional democracy; a country which has in fact suffered true persecution under Apartheid rule and has worked tirelessly to prevent such levels of discrimination from ever occurring again.”
Are White Afrikaans South Africans Refugees?
Trump’s program came after the South African government signed into law a new land expropriation bill in January—the Expropriation Act 13 of 2024 replaced the apartheid-era Expropriation Act 63 of 1975.
The bill is supposed to be a tool to help South Africa correct the longstanding issue of the unequal distribution of land that took place during apartheid and colonization.
The legislation offers assurances that “an expropriating authority may not expropriate property arbitrarily or for a purpose other than a public purpose or in the public interest” and that “an expropriating authority must also attempt to reach an agreement on the acquisition of the property before resorting to expropriation.”
But this has not quelled everyone’s fears, including many South African farmers who cite the issues that came with Zimbabwe’s land reform.
“The signing of the Expropriation Bill poses a risk to private property rights which is the primary basis on which South African agriculture is structured,” the agricultural organization AgriSA said in a statement. “Consequently, the Bill poses a risk to agricultural sustainability and food security.”
“While supporting the need for transformation and land reform in the agricultural sector, AgriSA emphasizes that it must not come at the expense of the economy and investor confidence,” CEO Johann Kotzé said.
A major point of contention is Section 12(3) of the act, which refers to land being seized with “nil compensation,” an allowance that is only supposed to be used where it is “just and equitable and in the public interest.”
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa spokesperson Vincent Magwenya said: “Expropriation may not be exercised unless the expropriating authority has without success attempted to reach an agreement with the owner.”
What Happens Next
The group of South Africans arriving on Monday are set to head to Texas after they land, according to Reuters.
The Administration is preparing to help find them “temporary or longer-term housing” and “basic home furnishings, essential household items and cleaning supplies,” according to the NYT, which cites a refugee office in the Department of Health and Human Services memo.
It is also set to help them with “groceries, weather-appropriate clothing, diapers, formula, hygiene products and prepaid phones that support the day-to-day well-being of households.”
