White South Africans arrive in the US after being granted asylum from what Trump calls 'genocide'

A GROUP OF around 50 white South Africans have arrived in the United States for resettlement after President Donald Trump granted them refugee status as victims of what he called a “genocide.”

Trump essentially halted refugee arrivals after taking office, but is making an exception for the Afrikaners despite South Africa’s insistence that they do not face persecution.

Afrikaners are the descendants of predominantly Dutch colonisers and made up most of the government that imposed apartheid in South Africa, a system that denied black people basic rights. 

“Welcome to the land of the free,” Deputy Secretary of State Chris Landau said as he greeted the South Africans, several of whom were waving small American flags, at Dulles Airport in Virginia following their flight from Johannesburg.

“We’re sending a clear message that the United States really rejects the egregious persecution of people on the basis of race in South Africa,” Landau said.

Speaking at the White House shortly before the group’s arrival, Trump, who is expected to meet with South African leaders next week, said the Afrikaners were fleeing a “terrible situation”.

Trump, whose ally Elon Musk was born in South Africa, said white farmers were being killed in the country and repeated an allegation of “genocide” that has been widely dismissed as absurd.

“It’s a terrible situation taking place,” Trump said.

“So we’ve essentially extended citizenship to those people to escape from that violence and come here.”

The myth of “white genocide” in South Africa is most commonly promoted by white supremacist groups. In a court ruling in February this year, a judge described it as “clearly imagined”. 

Prior to that court ruling, the idea had been debunked many times. 

Those being resettled just “happen to be white, but whether they’re white or black makes no difference to me,” Trump said.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa dismissed claims Afrikaners were being persecuted and said he recently told Trump what he is being told about their situation “is not true.”

“A refugee is someone who has to leave their country out of fear of political persecution, religious persecution, or economic persecution,” Ramaphosa said. “And they don’t fit that bill.”

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“We’re the only country on the continent where the colonizers came to stay and we have never driven them out of our country,” he added.

South African Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola also scoffed at claims that white Afrikaners face persecution or are being targeted for murder.

Most victims of killings in South Africa are young black men in urban areas, according to official data.

“The crime that we have in South Africa affects everyone irrespective of race and gender,” Lamola said.

‘Beyond absurd’ 

Under eligibility guidelines published by the US embassy, applicants for US resettlement must either be of Afrikaner ethnicity or belong to a racial minority in South Africa.

They must also “be able to articulate a past experience of persecution or fear of future persecution.”

Trump and Musk have accused South Africa’s government of targeting Afrikaners with a controversial land seizure law enacted this year, which gives the state power to expropriate land without compensation where it is “just and equitable and in the public interest” to do so.

Today, Trump threatened to not attend an upcoming G20 summit in South Africa unless the “situation is taken care of.”

Trump’s characterisation of the situation for white South Africans has been met with bemusement by many. 

Prominent Afrikaner author Max du Preez said the resettlement was “beyond absurd.”

“This is about Trump and MAGA, not about us. It’s about their hatred for DEI,” he told the AFP news agency, referring to diversity, equity and inclusion programs that have become a favourite Trump target.

“The people who have now fled have probably been motivated by financial considerations and/or an unwillingness to live in a post-apartheid society where whites no longer call the shots,” he said.

White people, who make up 7.3% of the South African population, generally enjoy a higher standard of living than the black majority.

White people also still own two-thirds of farmland and on average earn three times as much as black South Africans.

America’s biggest trading partner in Africa is also under fire from Washington for leading a case at the International Court of Justice accusing Israel, a close US ally, of committing genocide against the people of Gaza in Palestine.

With reporting from AFP

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