White Afrikaners as Refugees: Although the president halted virtually all other
refugee admissions shortly after he took office, the Trump administration is
planning to bring the first group of white South Africans it has classified as
refugees to the United States, according to officials briefed on the plans and
documents obtained by the Times.
By Zolan Kanno-Youngs, Hamed Aleaziz, John Eligon and Zimasa Matiwane
Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Hamed Aleaziz reported from Washington, John
Eligon from New York and Zimasa Matiwane from Johannesburg.
May 9, 2025
The Trump administration is planning to bring the first group of white South
Africans it has classified as refugees to the United States on Monday,
according to officials briefed on the plans and documents obtained by The New
York Times.
Although the president halted virtually all other refugee admissions shortly
after he took office in January, his administration hastily put together a program
to allow in white South Africans, who he claims have been the victims of racial
persecution in their home country.
The administration plans to send government officials to Washington Dulles
International Airport in Virginia for an event marking the arrival of the South
Africans, who belong to the white minority Afrikaner ethnic group, according to
a memo from the Department of Health and Human Services.
A top State Department official told South African officials on Friday that the
United States planned to transport 54 Afrikaners to the United States on a
charter flight scheduled to leave Johannesburg on Sunday, according to a
person briefed on the call, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share
details of the private conversation.
The arrival of the Afrikaners would cement Mr. Trump’s efforts to upend a
program that for decades has allowed thousands of people fleeing war, famine
and natural disaster to find safe haven in the United States.
While the program remains suspended for refugees across the world, such as
Congolese families in refugee camps and Rohingya seeking safety, white South
Africans were processed much faster than is normal for these cases.
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Refugees can often wait years in camps around the world before they are
processed and approved to travel to the United States. Before the first Trump
administration, refugee resettlement took an average of 18 to 24 months,
according to the American Immigration Council, an advocacy group for
immigrants. Many refugees must wait years longer.
The Afrikaners, however, had to wait no more than three months.
South African government officials have vigorously disputed the claim by the
United States that Afrikaners qualify for refugee status and conveyed those
doubts in a diplomatic memo sent to the State Department this week, they said.
Alvin Botes, South Africa’s deputy foreign minister, also discussed the Afrikaner
resettlement and other bilateral issues between the countries in a call on Friday
with Christopher Landau, the U.S. deputy secretary of state, according to a
spokesman for South Africa’s foreign ministry.
“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 Africa’s constitutional democracy,”
the spokesman, Chrispin Phiri, said in a statement.
He added that Afrikaners’ claims of discrimination “do not meet the threshold
of persecution required under domestic and international refugee law.”
The arrival of the white South Africans comes after Mr. Trump signed an
executive order suspending refugee admissions when he entered office. Then,
in February, Mr. Trump created an exception for the resettlement of Afrikaners
while also cutting all U.S. financial assistance to South Africa, accusing the
government of supporting America’s enemies, like Iran, and attacking its allies,
like Israel.
Mark Hetfield, the president of HIAS, a Jewish resettlement agency, said his
organization was committed to welcoming Afrikaners.
“But we are profoundly disturbed that the administration has slammed the door
in the face of thousands of other refugees approved by D.H.S. months ago,
notwithstanding courts ordering the White House to let many of them in,” Mr.
Hetfield said, referring to the Department of Homeland Security. “That’s just not
right.”
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Many Afrikaners say they are denied jobs, targeted by criminals and ignored by
the government because of their race. Mr. Trump’s support of Afrikaners dates
back to his first term. But this year he came to their side after South Africa’s
president enacted a law allowing the government to seize land from private
owners without providing compensation in rare instances.
Stephen Miller, Mr. Trump’s deputy chief of staff and the architect of his
immigration agenda, told reporters outside the White House on Friday that
“what’s happening in South Africa fits the textbook definition of why the
refugee program was created.” He added: “This is persecution based on a
protected characteristic, in this case, race. This is race-based persecution.”
He criticized previous administrations’ handling of the refugee program and
said Mr. Trump was “returning the refugee program to what it was intended to
do.”
Supporters of the measures in South Africa say they are necessary to undo the
vestiges of colonialism and apartheid, when the white-minority government
brutally repressed Black South Africans and drove them off their land. The
South African government has sparred with Mr. Trump and his officials, saying
that they are spreading misinformation.
Within weeks of announcing that Afrikaners would be eligible for refugee
status, the administration deployed teams to Pretoria, the South African capital,
to screen white South Africans for consideration, according to the documents
obtained by The Times. The teams studied more than 8,000 requests from
people expressing interest in becoming refugees, and the U.S. government
identified 100 Afrikaners who potentially could be approved. Trump
administration officials have been directed to focus particularly on screening
white Afrikaner farmers.
The resettlement of refugees is normally funded in large part by the State
Department. But Mr. Trump suspended that program when he took office.
So the administration will be relying more on another agency that has
traditionally supported refugees: a refugee office in the Department of Health
and Human Services. That office has been reaching out to organizations
assisting refugees in recent days to prepare them for the arrival of the
Afrikaners, according to a department memo obtained by The Times. The Lever
reported this week on the imminent arrival of the Afrikaners in the United States
and the administration’s plan to use emergency refugee funds to assist them.
The administration is preparing to help the Afrikaners find “temporary or
longer-term housing” and “basic home furnishings, essential household items
and cleaning supplies,” according to the memo. The administration is also
planning to help the Afrikaners secure “groceries, weather-appropriate clothing,
diapers, formula, hygiene products and prepaid phones that support the day-
to-day well-being of households,” the memo said.
Advocates for refugees said the rapid mobilization to allow the Afrikaners to
resettle highlighted the administration’s inaction on other refugees, even
sometimes in the face of court orders.
“Thousands of refugees from across the globe remain stranded in limbo
despite being fully vetted and approved for travel, including Afghan allies,
religious minorities and other populations facing extreme violence and
persecution,” said Timothy Young, a spokesman for Global Refuge, a
resettlement agency. “We hope this development reflects a broader readiness
to uphold the promise of protection for all refugees who meet longstanding
legal standards, regardless of their country of origin.”
This week, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to lift the ban on
refugees who were cleared for travel before Mr. Trump took office and to give
them the opportunity to finally enter the country.
The rapid arrival of Afrikaners “flies in the face of the government’s claims that
they aren’t able to process already-approved refugees, even after multiple
courts have ordered them to do so immediately,” Melissa Keaney, a senior
supervising attorney at the International Refugee Assistance Project, said in a
statement. “Thousands of refugees unlawfully stranded by President Trump’s
refugee suspension are in limbo and are ready to restart their lives in the United
States. There is no more time for excuses.”
Zolan Kanno-Youngs is a White House correspondent for The Times, covering
President Trump and his administration.
Hamed Aleaziz covers the Department of Homeland Security and immigration
policy for The Times.
John Eligon is the Johannesburg bureau chief for The Times, covering a wide
range of events and trends that influence and shape the lives of ordinary
people across southern Africa.
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