Trump Administration welcomes 59 white South African refugees in the United States and triggers the political debate

On Monday afternoon, American officials welcomed a group of 59 white South Africans at Washington Dulles International Airport, in a ceremony in which they were welcomed as refugees under the argument that they flee from discrimination and racist violence in their home country.

The newly arrived people come from the ethnic minority of the Africans, the group of whites who ruled during apartheid South Africa. The dozens that came on Monday, including Families with small children came through a flight chartered by the Foreign Ministry. Their resettlement in the United States comes because the Trump government has closed refugee shots from almost all other countries, including Afghanistan, Sudan, the Republic of the Congo and Myanmar.

The Africans were met when the deputy US Foreign Minister Christopher Landau and the deputy secretary of the Ministry of Homeland Salvation Troy Edgar.

Landau said that Trump's break for the US refugee program is subject to exceptions from the start when it was determined to be in the United States' interest. He quoted the example when the refugees “could easily be accepted into our country”.

“They tell rather terrifying stories about the violence with which they were confronted in South Africa that the authorities have not remedied by the unjust application of the law,” said Landau. “The United States, as we were proud, were to say for equal justice and the fair and impartial application of the law.”

In an executive regulation issued on February 7, Trump said that the United States would help “to escape African refugees, escaping the discrimination sponsored by the government, including racist discriminating property confectionery.” He condemned what he called the “shocking disregard of civil rights” of the country, and expressly stated that the government had confiscated the agricultural property of white Africans without compensating them.

The Executive Ordinance also said that the United States would no longer provide help or support. After a new South African state law came into force and reflecting the views of Elon Musk, the head of the Trump Department of Government Efficiency, who was born and grew up in South Africa.

The law was aware of white farmers by some whites in South Africa and some right in the United States as expressly to take away their country. The South African government and the experts deny this and find that the law allows expropriation in cases

In February, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa pushed back the claim that it was a country gripper. “The recent law on expropriation is not a confiscation instrument, but a constitutionally prescribed legal process that guarantees public access to land in a fair and justified manner, as is guided by the constitution,” he wrote to X Days before Trump.

The discussion about the law is suitable in a larger narrative of American law about white South African farmers who were allegedly killed in large numbers, which Trump spoke during his first term and which Musk described as a “genocide”, although there is no data that supports this.

The New York Times reported that 101 of the 225 people who were killed in farmers in South Africa between April 2020 and March 2024 were black streams or former workers who lived on farms. Of this number there were 53 farmers who are usually white.

The President said on Monday that the carver after South African refugees had no race -related breed.

“Farmers are killed,” said Trump reporters. “You are known to know. Whether you are white or black makes no difference for me. White farmers are brutally killed and the country is confiscated in South Africa.”

Stephen Miller, deputy deputy of the White House, defended the admission of white refugees on Friday.

“What happens in South Africa fits the textbook definition why the refugee program was created,” said Miller. “This is a racial persecution. The refugee program is not intended as a solution to global poverty, and historically it was used.”

Officials in South Africa denied this claim.

“It is most unfortunate that the resettlement of the South Africans into the United States is completely politically motivated under the guise of the” refugee “and questions the constitutional democracy of South Africa. A country that has suffered real persecution under the apartheid rule under the fact that she has suffered real perseverance with the Fanti -healer forced to undertake.

Landau, the deputy foreign minister, confirmed the attitude of the Trump government on Monday. “Unfortunately, it is not surprising that a country from which refugees come from does not admit that they are refugees, and unfortunately the South African government did not do what we think is appropriate to guarantee the rights of these citizens in peace with their South Africans, which is why they have given the Refugee status under our domestic law,” he said.

The Bischofskirche announced on Monday that it would not work to colonize the Africans again after the federal government asked them to the church in accordance with the provisions of a refugee settlement scholarship.

The chairman Bishop Sean Rowe wrote in an open letter that the church decided to end refugee work with the federal government until the end of the financial year: “In view of the steadfast commitment of our church for racial justice and reconciliation and our historical relationships with the Anglican Church of South Africa.”

“It was painful to see how a group of refugees who were selected in a very unusual way received preferred treatment towards many others who have been waiting in refugee camps or dangerous conditions for years,” wrote Rowe. “I am sad and I am ashamed that many of the refugees who are refused to enter the United States are brave people who have worked together in Iraq and Afghanistan alongside our military and are now exposed to our country at home.”

Thula Simpson, Associate Professor of History at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, said that Trump's rhetoric and the recording of African refugees in the USA would have caused tensions in South Africa.

“By using the term” genocide “, Trump went beyond reality,” said Simpson. “It creates a very uncertain situation, a very intensive situation with tightened racial relationships in the country – and the result is unpredictable.”