'Mission South Africa': How Trump Is Offering White Afrikaners Refugee Status [View all]

The United States has banned most refugees, including 20,000 people who were already ready to travel to the United States before President Trump took office. But Mr. Trump is making one exception.

Almost immediately after taking office, President Trump began shutting down refugee resettlement programs, slashing billions of dollars in funding and making it all but impossible for people from scores of countries to seek haven in the United States.

With one exception.

The Trump administration has thrown open the doors to white Afrikaners from South Africa, establishing a program called “Mission South Africa” to help them come to the United States as refugees, according to documents obtained by The New York Times.

Under Phase One of the program, the United States has deployed multiple teams to convert commercial office space in Pretoria, the capital of South Africa, into ad hoc refugee centers, according to the documents. The teams are studying more than 8,200 requests expressing interest in resettling to the United States and have already identified 100 Afrikaners who could be approved for refugee status. The government officials have been directed to focus particularly on screening white Afrikaner farmers.

The administration has also provided security escorts to officials conducting the interviews of potential refugees.


https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/30/us/politics/trump-south-africa-white-afrikaners-refugee.html