US Resettles First White South African Refugees Amid Trump Clampdown
A chartered flight carrying 49 white South Africans landed at Washington’s Dulles International Airport on May 11, marking the first group to arrive under a US refugee programme tailored for Afrikaners who say they face “racial persecution” in South Africa.
The move comes amid a wide clampdown on refugee admissions and a steep rise in deportations under President Donald Trump’s administration.
Trump’s February executive order created an exception allowing case-by-case admission of white South Africans, citing affirmative-action policies and a land expropriation law in South Africa that, the United States claims, unfairly target Afrikaners.
South African officials have rejected the allegation, noting that white citizens retain significant economic and landholding advantages decades after the end of apartheid.
By contrast, Trump’s January order indefinitely suspended the US Refugee Admissions Programme (USRAP) for nearly all applicants, pending a top-to-bottom review.
The suspension left more than 1,600 Afghan refugees, many of them former US interpreters and unaccompanied minors, stranded in processing centres abroad, and effectively halted admissions from Iraq.
Humanitarian groups report that no new arrivals from Afghanistan or Iraq have been accepted since the executive order took effect.
At the same time, deportation flights have surged. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) data show that 37,471 Mexican nationals and 5,511 nationals of other countries were removed via formal repatriation flights in the first four months of the year—a 22 per cent increase over the same period last year.
New bilateral agreements with El Salvador, Rwanda and Libya aim to expand removal destinations, though critics warn that some partner countries lack adequate protections for returnees.
Advocacy organisations describe the Afrikaner-only admissions as a symbolic gesture that highlights a racially selective approach to asylum.
“This policy prioritises race over need,” said Maria Hernandez, policy director at Refugee Rights Watch, as quoted by international press.
“It starkly contrasts with the blanket suspension that denies refuge to predominantly non-white populations fleeing conflict.”
Analysts say the dual policy risks undermining US humanitarian credentials and could set a precedent for asylum decisions driven by political and racial considerations rather than impartial assessments of vulnerability.
The Trump administration has offered no immediate indication that the broader USRAP suspension will be lifted.
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