South Africa has denounced Washington’s move to resettle Afrikaners as refugees as ‘entirely politically motivated.’
Dozens of white South Africans arrived in the United States on May 12 after being granted refugee status under the Trump administration’s new admission program.
About 49 Afrikaners—a white ethnic minority in South Africa—boarded a chartered flight bound for the District of Columbia, which will then fly to Texas, South African Transport Department spokesperson Collen Msibi said.
“One of the conditions of the permit was to ensure that they were vetted in case one of them has a criminal issue pending,” Msibi was quoted as saying by Reuters.
“Today, the United States sends a clear message, in alignment with the administration’s America First foreign policy agenda, that America will take action to protect victims of racial discrimination,” the U.S. State Department said in a statement.
“No one should have to fear having their property seized without compensation or becoming the victim of violent attacks because of their ethnicity. In the coming months, we will continue to welcome more Afrikaner refugees and help them rebuild their lives in our great country.”
This was the first group of Afrikaners relocated to the United States under a refugee admissions program initiated under President Donald Trump’s Feb. 7 executive order that allows the resettlement of Afrikaner refugees “escaping government-sponsored race-based discrimination.”
That executive order was issued after South African President Cyril Ramaphosa signed the Expropriation Act into law in January, allowing the expropriation or redistribution of certain unused land. The law aims to address racial disparities in land ownership that stemmed from South Africa’s former apartheid system.
The nation’s government noted that special conditions must be met before expropriating land, including that it has had longtime informal occupants, is unused and owned purely for speculation, or was left abandoned.
In his executive order, Trump stated that Ramaphosa’s government has imposed countless policies “designed to dismantle equal opportunity in employment, education, and business, and hateful rhetoric and government actions fueling disproportionate violence against racially disfavored landowners.”
