Washington, D.C: In a highly controversial move, 59 white South African refugees have arrived in the United States to be granted refugee status. The group includes members of the African minority, who landed at Dulles International Airport near Washington D.C, to a warm reception from US officials.
President Donald Trump has defended the decision, claiming the group members were victims of racial discrimination. Trump stated that, “a genocide was occurring and farmers are being killed, they happen to be white, but whether they’re white or black makes no difference to me.”
The Trump administration has paused most other refugee admissions, including those from active war zones. Human Rights Watch criticised the move as a cruel racial twist, noting that many black and Afghan refugees had been denied entry. The United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, noted it was not involved in the group’s processing, which is normally a standard procedure. Refugee applications in the US often take years, but this group’s case was fast-tracked.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa dismissed the US claim that the Afrikaners qualified as refugees. He emphasised that the individuals in question did not meet international standards for asylum. “A refugee is someone who has to leave their country out of fear of political persecution, religious persecution, or economic persecution. And they don’t fit that bill,” Ramaphosa said.
In January, South African President Ramaphosa signed a contentious law allowing land seizures without compensation under certain conditions. But no land has yet been seized. The slow pace of land reform has fuelled frustration. A 2017 report revealed that black South Africans, despite making up over 90 percent of the population, own just 4 percent of private land. In 2024, 44 farm-related murders were reported, with eight victims identified as farmers regardless of their race.
US–South African relations have been strained by Trump’s focus on resettling Afrikaners, a group largely of Dutch descent. Elon Musk, a South African-born adviser to Trump, previously stated that there was genocide of white people in the country. Those claims have been widely debunked.
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