YOUR attention please. American asylum and protection will now be granted to White, neo-nazi, fascist, racist, "christian" nationalist only, South Africans please move to the front of the line, fotze elon musk bought drumpf / trump and vance, their cabinet and the gop / greed over people-republican party to get you in the U.S. ALL other colors and faiths of asylum seekers try to shelter and survive in place, we may get back to you soonest after our 2028 election.
When it is discovered these refugees lied on their paperwork about the danger they faced in South Africa will they be deported to cecot in el salvador or will they be granted membership in the gop / greed over people-republican party?
White South Africans arrive at Dulles as refugees under Trump order
But Trump claimed Monday that a genocide was taking place in South Africa, an allegation government officials there say lacks any evidence.
“Farmers are being killed,” the president said at a news conference. “They happen to be White. 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.”
South African officials have called the effort to cast the Afrikaner families as refugees a “politically motivated” ploy “designed to question South Africa’s constitutional democracy.”
The South African land redistribution law, which was signed in January, allows for property to be taken without compensation in some situations, subject to review by a judge.
South African officials have framed the law, the Expropriation Act, as an effort to correct the wrongs of four decades of segregationist apartheid rule, sowing deep racial divisions in the country.
White people in South Africa, who make up about 7 percent of the country’s population, own about three-quarters of individually owned farms and agricultural holdings, according to a South African government land audit.
“They can’t provide any proof of any persecution because there’s not any,” Ronald Lamola, the country’s international relations and cooperation minister, said at a Monday news conference in Pretoria, South Africa’s administrative capital. “There is not any form of persecution to White South Africans.”
The group of mostly Afrikaner families landed at Dulles in Northern Virginia early Monday afternoon. From there, they were set to board connecting flights to 10 states, where they will be resettled by local refugee organizations, according to three government officials familiar with the plans who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to share details of the preparations.
As they disembarked from the 12-hour flight, some of the adults held babies and toddlers. Many waved small American flags given to them upon their arrival. Red, white and blue balloons decorated the walls of a plane hangar where a news conference was to be held.
“Welcome to the United States of America. This is the land of the free,” Christopher Landau, deputy secretary of state, told the group, some looking bleary-eyed while others smiled. “Many of us have families that had a journey not that different than the journey that you are embarking on today. My father left from Europe — he had to leave his country when Hitler came in during the 1930s.”
“I want you all to know that you are really welcome here and that we respect what you have had to deal with these last few years,” Landau said. “We respect the long tradition of your people and what you have accomplished over the last few years.”
Refugees are a distinct class of people who have been forced to flee their home country after they have been persecuted or fear persecution — usually death — because of their race, religion, nationality, politics or membership in a particular social group.
They must go through strict vetting by U.S. officials and often wait up to several years before being allowed to enter the country, where they are eligible for government services and a path to citizenship. No South Africans were resettled in the U.S. as refugees in fiscal 2024, according to government data.
Though refugees coming into the U.S. are typically vetted by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, which routinely refers people fleeing persecution and violence in their home countries to safer countries like the U.S., the South African group did not go through such screening.
A State Department memo obtained by The Washington Post said that most of the arriving Afrikaners “have witnessed or experienced extreme violence with a racial nexus,” including home invasions, murders or carjackings that took place up to 25 years ago.
“Many have also said that they do not trust the police, citing that law enforcement has not adequately investigated crimes against Afrikaners,” the memo said.
During a news conference after the group’s arrival, Landau reiterated those claims, saying that some members of the group shared “harrowing stories of the violence that they faced in South Africa.”
By resettling them as refugees, Landau said, “We’re sending a clear message that the United States really rejects the egregious persecution on the basis of race in South Africa.”
Neither Landau nor any of the arriving Afrikaners shared specific details of persecution before the news conference ended and they all walked away.
Advocates for other refugees seeking safe harbor in the U.S. expressed outrage over the effort after the Trump administration suspended all refugee admissions to the U.S. on Inauguration Day. Later that week, it slashed funding for resettlement groups that help refugees find jobs and housing across the country.
A Jan. 20 executive order signed by President Donald Trump said the country “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.”
Shawn VanDiver, president of #AfghanEvac — a nonprofit group whose volunteers include U.S. veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq — said the preference given to White South Africans creates the appearance that the U.S. government can’t be trusted when it promises a secure life in the U.S. to those who have risked their lives for the country during times of war.
VanDiver’s group works to help Afghans who worked for the U.S. as translators, drivers and in other roles during the war and are worried about Taliban retribution gain entry into the country.
“It’s a threat to our national security abroad,” he said of the Trump administration’s effort. “This contrast isn’t just political theater — it’s a fundamental question of whether U.S. refugee policy is rooted in principle or in politics. The hypocrisy is as clear as it is cruel.”
He added that 1,200 Afghans — including more than 200 family members of U.S. service members — are waiting at a U.S. facility in Qatar to be let into the U.S.
On Monday, the Department of Homeland Security said that it will end temporary protected status for Afghans.
Maria Corina Vegas, a longtime Venezuelan American advocate and member of the Miami-Dade Democratic Hispanic caucus, called the preference given to Afrikaners “an offense to any immigrant who has tried to come to make it legally to the U.S.”
“There is a really clear agenda here that is counter to the fundamental principals on which America was founded and stood for and once admired [for] around the world,” Vegas said.
Murithi Mutiga, Africa program director for the International Crisis Group, said South Africa’s African National Congress government is widely admired for its efforts to wipe out the legacy of apartheid.
“Very few policies, apart from the USAID cuts, have attracted as much astonishment and revulsion as this policy, which appears to be racially motivated,” Mutiga said of the Trump administration effort.
Refugee resettlement groups and some of their clients have filed a lawsuit over the suspension of the refugee admissions program.
A federal judge in Seattle ordered last week that the government by Monday must resume refugee case processing at all levels and lift suspensions for 12,000 people who had been approved to arrive, with their flights booked, before the halt in resettlement occurred. It must also begin facilitating travel for people with unexpired medical and security clearances and submit a plan to the judge to renew expired clearances; a compliance report to the court is due by Wednesday.
As the Afrikaners headed to their next destinations, one group that assists with resettling refugees said it was ending its nearly 40-year-old relationship with the U.S. government after being asked to provide aid to the arriving South Africans.
“It has been painful to watch one group of refugees, selected in a highly unusual manner, receive preferential treatment over many others who have been waiting in refugee camps or dangerous conditions for years,” the Rev. Sean W. Rowe, the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, wrote in a letter to the protestant church’s members. “I am saddened and ashamed that many of the refugees who are being denied entrance to the United States are brave people who worked alongside our military in Iraq and Afghanistan and now face danger at home because of their service to our country.”
Thea Van Straten, one of the Afrikaners, looked exhausted as she loaded her bags on to a cart at a United Airlines check-in desk.
She said she had been advised not to talk much about her situation and didn’t know where she was headed, though a sticker on her luggage indicated it was going to Raleigh, North Carolina.
“We’re tired,” Van Straten said. “It’s been a very emotional, very rough couple of weeks.”
Immigration during Trump’s second term
Trump’s aggressive crackdown: Since returning to the White House, President Donald Trump has made immigration enforcement one of his top priorities. He issued a series of executive orders that include declaring a national emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border, deploying hundreds of troops there and attempting to end birthright citizenship for the children of noncitizens, a move that a federal judge has temporarily blocked. The administration has also largely closed access to the asylum process, suspended refugee resettlement and ended temporary humanitarian protections for about 350,000 Venezuelans who sought refuge in the United States. These policies have created widespread panic and confusion in immigrant communities across the country.
More resources diverted: Trump has promised to deport millions of immigrants who are in the country illegally, and administration officials have directed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials to aggressively ramp up the number of people they arrest, from a few hundred per day to at least 1,200 to 1,500. To meet these goals, the administration has enlisted personnel from the FBI, U.S. Marshals, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons. To quickly increase ICE’s detention capacity, the administration has begun to send migrants to the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba.
Pushback in the courts: Advocacy groups and others have filed lawsuits over many of Trump’s new policies. Officials in 22 states, plus D.C. and San Francisco, have sued over Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order. Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Immigrant Justice Center and others have challenged the Trump administration’s claim that there is an “invasion” on the border to justify summarily expelling migrants without giving them a chance to apply for asylum.
Tabelo Tims in Johannesburg contributed to this report.
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- 2His great-grandfather enshrined birthright citizenship. Norman Wong is trying to save it.
- 3As Trump rushes to deport migrants, many worry children’s rights are being violated
- 4Trump shut out refugees but is making White South Africans an exception
- 5Trump’s immigration ratings turn negative, Post-ABC-Ipsos poll finds
