The first batch of white South Africans granted refugee status in the US after President Donald Trump deemed them victims of racial discrimination are set to land in Virginia today.
The 49 Afrikaners – a white minority group in South Africa – will be relocated across the US after the White House fast-tracked their applications.
They boarded a flight from Johannesburg yesterday which is due to touch down at Washington Dulles airport later today. They will participate in a press conference before boarding flights to different cities across the US.
Collen Msibi, a spokesperson for South Africa’s transport ministry, said the 49 refugees would have to be vetted by police to ensure there were no criminal cases or outstanding warrants against them before being allowed to leave.
In February Trump issued an executive order accusing South Africa’s government of seizing land from white farmers without any compensation, an allegation denied by Cape Town.
When Trump was asked about the South Africans arrival, he said: ‘It’s a genocide that’s taking place, and you people don’t want to write about it.
‘It’s a terrible thing that’s taking place, and the farmers are being killed; they happen to be white. Whether they are white or Black makes no difference to me, but white farmers are being brutally killed, and their land is being confiscated in South Africa.
Top Trump adviser, South African-born Elon Musk, has previously said there was a ‘genocide of white people’ in South Africa and accused the government of passing ‘racist ownership laws’.
Top Trump adviser, Sout African-born Elon Musk , has previously said there was a ‘genocide of white people’ in South Africa and accused the government of passing ‘racist ownership laws’
The 49 Afrikaners – a white minority group in South Africa – will be relocated across the US after the White House fast-tracked their applications
White South Africans demonstrate in support of Donald Trump in front of the US embassy in Pretoria, South Africa
The flight will be the first in a ‘much larger-scale relocation effort’, according to White House deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller.
He added that what was happening to Afrikaners in South Africa ‘fits the textbook definition of why the refugee program was created’, adding: ‘This is persecution based on a protected characteristic – in this case, race. This is race-based persecution.’
But the South African government has firmly rejected these accusations.
They do not qualify for that status, according to us,’ Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola said at a press briefing on Monday.
‘There is no data at all that backs that there is persecution of white South Africans,’ he added, saying crime in South Africa affects everyone irrespective of race.
In a statement on Friday, South Africa’s Foreign Ministry said accusations the government discriminated against the country’s white minority were ‘unfounded’ and that the US’s resettlement scheme was an attempt to undermine the country’s ‘constitutional democracy’.
There are around 2.7 million Afrikaners among South Africa’s population of 62 million, which is more than 80 per cent Black.
Whites still own three-quarters of private land and have about 20 times the wealth of the Black majority, according to international academic journal the Review of Political Economy.
Less than 10 per cent of white South Africans are out of work, compared with more than a third of their Black counterparts.
There are around 2.7 million Afrikaners among South Africa’s population of 62 million, which is more than 80 per cent Black
In February Trump issued an executive order accusing South Africa’s government of seizing land from white farmers without any compensation, an allegation denied by Cape Town
Trump’s openness to accepting Afrikaner refugees is in stark contrast to a wider crackdown on migrants and asylum seekers from other countries.
Tension between South Africa and the Trump administration has been growing, however.
In March, South Africa’s ambassador to the US, Ebrahim Rasool, was expelled after accusing President Trump of using ‘white victimhood as a dog whistle’, leading to the US accusing Mr Rasool of ‘race-baiting’.
Since his return to the White House in January, Trump has cut all U.S. financial assistance to South Africa, citing disapproval of its land policy and of its genocide case at the International Court of Justice against Washington’s ally, Israel.
