PREVIEW
Washington claims great success with its asylum offer to white South Africans as its new ambassador to Pretoria dials back the rhetoric
Almost 4,500 white South Africans have been given refugee status in the United States since last October, according to the US Department of State's Bureau of Population. In total, 4,499 refugees were resettled in the US between October and March. Apart from three Afghans they were all South African.
Anecdotal reports suggest that many of the new arrivals have struggled to fit into US society or secure sustainable work and some are planning to return to South Africa. Since he presented his credentials to South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa last month, US Ambassador Leo Brent Bozell III has been toning down some of his criticism of the government in Pretoria.
Since starting his second presidential term last January, President Donald Trump has ended refugee arrivals in the US as part of a co-ordinated crackdown on migration and asylum claims. His administration has also sought to agree return and settlement deals with a series of African countries including South Sudan and Uganda (AC Vol 66 No 15, Trump ‘cash for migrants’ playbook hits roadblocks in Africa).
But he has offered refugee status to South Africa’s white Afrikaner farming community, making false claims they were victims of racial discrimination and ‘genocide’ during a meeting in the Oval Office with Ramaphosa (AC Vol 66 No 11, Why Musk and Rupert hold key to the Ramaphosa-Trump summit). The offer has since been expanded to be offered to ‘other victims of illegal or unjust discrimination in their respective homelands’, the Trump administration has said.
There has been a marked uptick in arrival numbers. February and March saw the most arrivals, with more than 1,300 people resettled each month. More than 450 of the new arrivals have been settled in Texas.
The figures suggest that white South Africans will account for almost all of the 7,500 refugees which the Trump administration said would be the maximum number of arrivals in the 2026 fiscal year.
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