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Trump shut out refugees but is making White South Africans an exception
Federal and Virginia state officials are preparing to receive about 60
White South Africans at Dulles International Airport next week, government documents and emails show.
Updated
May 9, 2025

By Teo Armus
Months after the Trump administration ground U. S. refugee admissions to a halt, suspending a program that lets in thousands of people fleeing war or political persecution, it is preparing to restart that effort but only for
one group: White South Africans.
Plans are underway to fly approximately 60 Afrikaners to Dulles
International Airport on a State Department-chartered plane Monday, with federal and Virginia officials preparing to receive them in a ceremonial
news conference, according to documents and emails obtained by The
Washington Post, as well as three government officials familiar with the preparations.
The arriving families, who are part of a group that President Donald Trump
has said faces racial discrimination, will then be resettled outside
Virginia in 10 states, according to those familiar with the plans, who
spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to
share details of the preparations.
The U. S. government is prioritizing the resettlement of Afrikaner
refugees, and [the Office of Refugee Resettlement] is coordinating services
to ensure they receive the support they need from the very initial days of their arrival, Miro Marinovich, who oversees the Refugee Program Bureau at
the Department of Health and Human Services, wrote in an email to other
federal officials Wednesday. The first flight of Afrikaner refugees is set
to arrive on Monday, May 12.

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A State Department spokesperson did not answer questions about the flight
but confirmed in a statement that embassy officials have been conducting interviews and processing in accordance with a Trump executive order in February. That directive to Cabinet officials looked to promote the resettlement of Afrikaners as refugees following a recently signed South African land redistribution law that in some situations allows for property
to be taken away without compensation.
Stephen Miller, Trumps deputy chief of staff, told reporters outside the
White House on Friday that whats happening in South Africa fits the
textbook definition of why the refugee program was created. This is
persecution based on a protected characteristic, in this case, race.
Leavitt: South African refugees flee racial persecution
0:18
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt responded May 9 to a question about White South Africans expected to be given refuge in the United
States. (Video: The Washington Post)
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. Highly vetted, they are eligible for
government services and a path to citizenship and must often wait up to
several years to be screened and processed before coming to the United
States.
Last year, no South Africans of any race, ethnicity or linguistic group
were vetted by the United Nations as meeting its criteria to be resettled
as refugees, according to the organizations data.
State Department officials would not say why the 60 Afrikaners set to
arrive Monday were granted refugee status, but a department memo obtained
by The Post said that most of them have witnessed or experienced extreme violence with a racial nexus, including home invasions, murders or
carjackings that took place up to 25 years ago.
This initial cohort of refugees has frequently expressed fear of remaining
in South Africa due to race-based violence [or] other severe harm, the memo said, and do not trust police, who they claim have failed to investigate
crimes against Afrikaners.
But Chrispin Phiri, a spokesman for South Africas Foreign Ministry, said in
a statement that any allegations of discrimination were unfounded and do
not meet the threshold of persecution under domestic and international
refugee law.
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 Africas constitutional democracy, Phiris statement said. 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, including through the entrenchment of rights in our Constitution, which is enforced vigorously through our judicial system.
The Afrikaners planned arrival stems from Trumps efforts to weigh in on the complex racial politics of South Africa, where billionaire Elon Musk, his onetime adviser overseeing massive federal spending cuts, grew up during apartheid.
Since apartheid ended in the early 1990s, South Africa has been wrestling
with how to deal with the long shadow of the segregationist policy, which
sowed deep racial divisions in the country over four decades.
One of those efforts, a land redistribution law signed in January known as
the Expropriation Act, prompted Trump in February to cut all foreign aid to South Africa. He claimed without evidence that the law which, so far, has
not resulted in any land seizures was an act of discrimination against
White landowners.
In his executive order, Trump also directed Cabinet officials to prioritize humanitarian relief for Afrikaners who are escaping government-sponsored race-based discrimination.
But as the administration now seeks to offer Afrikaners safe haven in the United States including through an accelerated process that skips over
some typical steps in long-standing vetting procedures for resettlement
its efforts will rely on a system the president has effectively gutted.
All other refugees besides the Afrikaners descendants of primarily Dutch settlers in South Africa have essentially been kept from arriving since
Trumps first week in office. Government funding has been slashed to a
network of nonprofit groups that help the newcomers acclimate, forcing them
to lay off or furlough hundreds of case managers who assist arrivals in
finding jobs, housing and other government aid.
After some of those organizations filed a lawsuit seeking to reverse the programs suspension, a federal judge in Seattle on Monday ordered the Trump administration to process and resettle approximately 12,000 people who had
been approved to arrive, with their flights booked, before the halt in resettlement occurred. But it is unclear when that may happen.
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Bill Frelick, the refugee and migrant rights director at Human Rights
Watch, said thousands of refugees, including many Black sub-Saharan
Africans, were prepared and ready to be resettled in the United States.
The door was slammed in their faces, he said. Now, to have a group that
didnt flee their country, that has historically enjoyed tremendous
privilege in the country and that are White, provides a cruel racial twist
to the suspension of refugee resettlement.
Admitting Afrikaners as refugees was framed by Trump as a response to
actions by South Africa that are undermining United States foreign policy
a reference to its decision to accuse Israel of genocide at the
International Court of Justice. He also cited the countrys land
redistribution law.
South African officials said the Expropriation Act is a means to end a
broad racial disparity in land ownership stemming from apartheid. The
countrys first comprehensive land audit in 2017 found that the White population, which makes up about 7 percent of South Africans, accounted for about three-quarters of individually owned farms and agricultural holdings.
The law allows the government to seize land in the public interest, but
only after a process that is subject to review by a judge. The lobbying
group AfriForum, which advocates on behalf of Afrikaners, has called the
law controversial and vowed to challenge it.
Trump in his executive order called the measure a shocking disregard of its citizens rights that amounted to racially discriminatory property
confiscation.
It was grounds enough to roll out the welcome mat and bring Afrikaners into
the United States via the refugee program that, last year, resettled
100,000 people from such war-torn countries as Afghanistan, Ukraine and Democratic Republic of Congo.
Yet, with much of that system now dismantled after its funding was slashed, officials with the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security
and the Department of Health and Human Services have taken unusual steps to bring the South Africans to the United States.
For example, the Afrikaners set to arrive Monday are not going through a cultural orientation program required of all other refugees before their arrival, the three people familiar with the matter said.
The Afrikaners are receiving what is known as P-1 refugee status, one of
the people said, which typically begins for large groups with a referral
and initial screening by officials of the U. N. High Commissioner for
Refugees (UNHCR). That process is one of several steps meant to ensure that
an individual meets the internationally recognized criteria to be deemed a refugee.
UNHCR has not been involved in screening the Afrikaners and was not
approached to participate, said Eujin Byun, a spokeswoman for the agency. Groups that are granted refugee status based on claims of identity-based persecution generally receive P-2 refugee status, which requires
congressional designation. Other categories of refugees require that their spouses, children or parents be already present in the U. S. or that they
have private sponsors to receive them.
The U. S. Embassy in Pretoria, South Africas administrative capital, has
been conducting interviews and processing the families, according to two of
the people who discussed the operation. A State Department spokesperson confirmed that to be the case.
Refugee processing is typically done in a third country separate from the applicants homeland and the United States because refugees by definition
are not considered safe in their country of origin.
The federal government typically works with the International Organization
for Migration, another U. N. agency, to process refugees overseas and
assist them with booking flights to the United States. The IOM is not
involved in coordinating the Afrikaners travel, the three people familiar
with the matter said. The agency did not respond to a request for comment. State Department officials have instead sought to charter planes directly
for the families scheduled to arrive from South Africa, documents show.
Such a move typically occurs only during emergencies when a large number of people are all being resettled at once, such as during the Talibans return
to power in Afghanistan in 2021.
The Afrikaner families set to arrive at Dulles are mostly from rural parts
of South Africa, have farming experience and all speak English, according
to a State Department memo. About one-third have family members or friends already in the U. S.
After the news conference, they will board connecting flights to reach
their final destinations elsewhere. They will be received by local
resettlement organizations, according to a handout from the U. S. Embassy
in Pretoria for refugees arriving in the U. S. this month. They may also be received by a family member or friend who can support them, though most do
not have such ties, the three people familiar with the plans said.
The Trump administration froze State Department funds to those
organizations meant to help acclimate refugees to their new homes once they
are in the United States, notably by providing medical care, job training
and up to three months of rent.
Officials at the State Department and the Office of Refugee Resettlement, a branch of HHS, have instead turned to two still-existing pools of money to support the Afrikaners upon their arrival: one meant to cover gaps in
funding for particularly vulnerable refugees, and another to help state governments administer job training and other programs for refugees, the
three people familiar with the matter said.
The email from Marinovich, the senior HHS official, said that organizations receiving money from the Preferred Communities program, the first pool of money, will welcome the Afrikaners and assist them with intake and referral
to or provision of services such as housing, case management, access to benefits, etc.
State governments do not usually use their funds to support refugees who
are simply passing through on their way to other destinations, the three
people said.
However, while no refugees are set to be resettled in Virginia, the state
will be spending some of the money that is normally intended for job
training programs to welcome the Afrikaner families ahead of Mondays news conference, the three people said.
Two of the people said that will include providing items for the families children while working with a local resettlement group. The Virginia
Department of Social Services did not respond to a request for comment.

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