First white South Africans arrive in US after Trump grants them refugee status – Guardian 12-05-2025

“First white South Africans arrive in US after Trump grants them refugee status

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Rachel Savage in Johannesburg, David Smith in Washington and agencies

Mon 12 May 2025

The first group of white South Africans granted refugee status by Donald Trump’s administration has arrived in the US, stirring controversy in South Africa as the US president declared the Afrikaners victims of a “genocide”.

The Afrikaners, a minority descended from mainly Dutch colonists, were met at Dulles international airport outside Washington DC by the US deputy secretary of state, Christopher Landau, and deputy secretary of homeland security, Troy Edgar, with many given US flags to wave.

Reuters reported that the group numbered 59 adults and children, citing a state department official, while Associated Press said there were 49.

At Dulles airport, Landau told the assembled white South Africans: “It is such an honour for us to receive you here today … it makes me so happy to see you with our flag in your hands.

He invoked his family’s history, saying: “My own father was born in Europe and had to leave his country when Hitler came in … We respect what you have had to deal with these last few years.”

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On the same day the group arrived in the US, Trump’s government also ended legal protections that had temporarily protected Afghans from deportation, citing an improved security situation in the country, which is ruled by the Taliban.

One consideration for resettling Afrikaners not Afghans was that “they could be easily assimilated into our country,” Landau told reporters at the airport.

Trump suspended the US refugee settlement programme in January, leaving more than 100,000 people approved for refugee resettlement stranded. Then, in February, he signed an executive order directing officials to grant refugee status to Afrikaners, whose leaders ruled during apartheid while violently repressing the Black majority.

“It’s a genocide that’s taking place,” Trump told reporters at the White House, […] echoing a far-right conspiracy theory that has also been amplified by his South African-born billionaire adviser Elon Musk.

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White South Africans typically have 20 times the wealth of Black people, according to an article in the Review of Political Economy. The Black South African unemployment rate is 46.1%, compared with 9.2% for white people.

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Democrats also condemned the Afrikaners’ resettlement. The Maryland senator Chris Van Hollen told a thinktank event: “To watch the Trump administration apply what I call their global apartheid policy … is just an outrageous insult to the whole idea of our country.”

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