U.S. Administration Arranges Aircraft for Initial White South African Migrants as Refugees
BREAKING NEWS: A group of White South Africans will touch down in Washington, D.C., on Monday, courtesy of a State Department-chartered plane, marking their entry into the United States as refugees.
Despite President Trump's suspension of the State Department's refugee admissions program via an executive order on his second term's opening day, these South Africans will find a home in the US. The scheduled arrival of the first White South African refugees was first reported by The New York Times.
Trump's executive order from January 20 stated that the US "lacks the capacity to absorb significant numbers of migrants, particularly refugees, without compromising the resources and safety of American citizens."
However, a few weeks after a public feud with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa over his signing of a land seizure law, Trump issued a second executive order. This order eliminated aid for South Africa and made an exception for "Afrikaner refugees escaping government-sponsored racial discrimination, including confiscation of property based on race."
Elon Musk, a Trump advisor born and raised in South Africa, has accused the South African government of failing to stop the "genocide" against white farmers. The South African government expresses their concerns to the Trump administration about their citizens being granted refugee status.
According to the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol, a refugee is defined as an individual with a well-founded fear of persecution due to race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion. However, it remains unclear how the White South Africans fit into this definition or why they were given priority over requests from other persecuted groups in countries like Sudan, the Republic of Congo, or Myanmar.
Chrispin Phiri, a spokesperson for South Africa's Ministry of International Relations and Cooperation, recently stated that the resettlement of South Africans to the United States under the guise of being "refugees" seems politically motivated and an attempt to question South Africa's democratic system. Despite this, White House deputy chief of staff and homeland security adviser Stephen Miller defend the resettling of the Afrikaners as facing racial persecution that meets the criteria for the refugee program's creation.
Shawn VanDiver, president of AfghanEvac, a San Diego-based coalition aiding Afghans in evacuation and resettlement, argues that the Trump administration cannot cherry-pick which victims deserve safety. "If Stephen Miller supports refugee resettlement when it serves political agendas, that's fine. But let's not pretend Afghan allies don't meet the same legal definition," VanDiver said. "Racial persecution exists in many places. So does religious, political, and gender-based violence. That's exactly what Afghans are fleeing."
- The scheduled arrival of White South Africans as refugees in the United States, despite President Trump's suspension of the refugee admissions program, seems politically motivated, according to South Africa's Ministry of International Relations and Cooperation.
- The White House, however, defends the resettling of Afrikaners as refugees, citing racial persecution that meets the criteria for the refugee program's creation, amidst concerns from the South African government about the politically motivated resettlement of their citizens.
- Shawn VanDiver, president of AfghanEvac, raises questions about the Trump administration's selective approach to refugee resettlement, arguing that if political agendas are being served, all victims of persecution, including Afghans, should be granted the same legal definition and priority for safety.
