The Trump administration will welcome more than two dozen white South Africans to the United States as refugees next week, an unusual move because it has suspended most refugee resettlement operations, officials anddocuments said.
The first Afrikaner refugees are arriving Monday at Dulles International Airport outside Washington, according to a document. They are expected to be greeted by a government delegation, including the deputy secretary of state and officials from the Department of Health and Human Services, which has organised their resettlement under its Office for Refugee Resettlement. The flight will be the first of several in a “much larger-scale relocation effort”, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller told reporters.
“What’s happening in South Africa fits the textbook definition of why the refugee programme was created,” he said. “This is persecution based on a protected characteristic — in this case, race. This is race-based persecution.”
State Department refugee programmes have been put on hold since President Donald Trump ordered a review in February. While halting arrivals from Afghanistan, Iraq, most of sub-Saharan Africa and throughout Latin America, Trump also issued an executive order prioritising the processing of white South Africans who claim racial discrimination in their home country. “The US Embassy in Pretoria has been conducting interviews and processing pursuant to President Trump’s Executive Order on Addressing Egregious Actions of the Republic of South Africa,” the State Department said. “The Department of State is prioritising consideration for US refugee resettlement of Afrikaners in South Africa who are victims of unjust racial discrimination.”
The department said nothing about the imminent arrival of what officials said are believed to be more than two dozen white South Africans from roughly four families who had applied for resettlement in the US. Their arrival had originally been scheduled for early last week but was delayed for reasons that were not immediately clear.
The HHS refugee office was ready to offer them support, including with housing, furniture and other household items, and expenses like groceries, clothing, diapers and more, the document says. “This effort is a stated priority of the administration.”
HHS didn’t respond to messages seeking comment. The Trump administration has taken an outspoken adversarial position in regard to South Africa, which is the homeland of close Trump adviser Elon Musk and also holds the rotating presidency of the Group of 20 developed and developing nations. Secretary of State Marco Rubio notably boycotted a G20 foreign ministers meeting in Johannesburg in March because its main agenda centered on diversity, inclusion and climate change. Rubio also expelled South Africa’s ambassador to the US in March for comments that the Trump administration interpreted as accusing the president of promoting white supremacy. Shortly thereafter, the State Department ended all engagement with the G20 during South Africa’s presidency. The US is due to host G20 meetings in 2026. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s office said in a statement Friday that he had spoken with Trump late last month on issues including the US criticism of South Africa and the Trump administration’s allegations that Afrikaners are being persecuted. Ramaphosa told Trump that the information the US president had received “was completely false”, the statement said.
