South Africa’s government has criticised a US plan to give priority to refugee applications from white Afrikaners, saying claims of a “white genocide” have been widely debunked and lack credible evidence.
Officials pointed to an open letter from prominent Afrikaners published this week that rejects the narrative, with some signatories calling the relocation idea racist. Pretoria also noted that only a limited number of white South African Afrikaners have shown interest in moving, which it says undercuts the claim of persecution.
“Refuge isn’t a color; it’s a need.”
Anonymous
What we Know
On Thursday the Trump administration set a record-low annual refugee cap of 7,500. It is not clear how many white South Africans have entered the US through the programme. South Africa’s latest crime statistics do not show white people being targeted by violent crime more than other groups.
Earlier this year President Trump offered refugee status to Afrikaners after President Cyril Ramaphosa signed a law permitting land seizures without compensation in rare cases. Most private farmland remains in the hands of white South Africans, who make up a little over 7% of the population.
Facts
Tensions have simmered for months. South Africa’s ambassador to Washington, Ebrahim Rasool, was expelled after accusing Trump of “mobilising a supremacism” and using “white victimhood” as a political signal. In a May Oval Office meeting, Trump told Ramaphosa that white farmers were being killed and persecuted.
The White House held up a photo said to show body bags of white South Africans. Reuters later identified it as one of its own images from the Democratic Republic of Congo. Washington did not comment on the misidentification. A video presented as burial sites for murdered white farmers was later shown to be footage from a 2020 protest where crosses represented killings over multiple years.
