South Africa Challenges U.S. Refugee Policy Favoring White Afrikaners

Sat Nov 01 2025 22:10:47 GMT+0200 (Eastern European Standard Time)

South Africa's government has criticized the United States' decision to prioritize refugee applications from white Afrikaners, citing misinformation and a lack of evidence regarding claims of persecution.

The South African government has dismissed U.S. plans to prioritize refugee applications from white Afrikaners, arguing that claims of a genocide have been discredited. Officials highlight that few Afrikaners have sought relocation and assert that crime statistics do not support allegations of greater violence against white citizens. This response follows President Trump's controversial remarks on South Africa's land policies and racial violence.

The South African government has criticized the US's decision to prioritize refugee applications from white Afrikaners, saying claims of a white genocide have been widely discredited and lack reliable evidence.

It highlighted an open letter published by prominent members of the Afrikaner community earlier this week rejecting the narrative, with some signatories calling the relocation scheme racist.

The limited number of white South African Afrikaners signing up to relocate to the US was indication that they were not being persecuted, it added.

On Thursday, the administration of US President Donald Trump announced its lowest refugee annual cap on record - to just 7,500.

The exact figures of the number of white South Africans who have been admitted through the US scheme are not available. South Africa's latest crime statistics do not indicate that more white people have fallen victim to violent crime than other racial groups.

Earlier this year President Trump offered refugee status to Afrikaners - who are mostly descendants of Dutch and French settlers - after South African President Cyril Ramaphosa signed a law allowing the government to seize land without compensation in rare instances.

Most private farmland is owned by white South Africans who make up just over 7% of the population.

In the Oval Office in May, Trump confronted South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa and claimed white farmers in his nation were being killed and persecuted. President Trump held up a photo purporting to show body bags containing the remains of white people in South Africa; however, it later emerged that the photo was misidentified and actually taken in the Democratic Republic of Congo.