US claims ‘emergency refugee situation’ as it admits 10,000 more white South Africans | US immigration
The US government announced it would increase the number of white South Africans admitted as refugees this year from about 7,500 to 17,500, saying “unforeseen developments in South Africa have created a refugee emergency.”
Since the start of his second term last year, Donald Trump has repeatedly made false claims that white Afrikaners are being targeted for racist purposes and facing “white genocide”, which the South African government has furiously refuted.
His administration also cut aid to South Africa, boycotted the G20 summit in Johannesburg last year and disinvited South Africa from this year’s G20, which will be held at one of Trump’s Miami resorts.
The United States began admitting white South Africans as refugees in May 2025, while suspending the refugee settlement program for people fleeing war and persecution in countries including Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan. In the year ending September 2024, the last full fiscal year before Trump took office, the United States admitted more than 100,000 refugees.
On Monday, the US State Department sent Congress an emergency notice, saying it would take in up to 17,500 Afrikaners as refugees in the year ending in September. In October, the government announced it would accept only 7,500 refugees in total, mostly white South Africans.
It said the cost of resettling an additional 10,000 white South Africans would be around $100 million (£75 million), according to the Associated Press, which has seen a copy of the notice.
The State Department said the South African government’s rhetoric “across multiple government departments and political parties has sought to undermine the U.S. resettlement program and attack Afrikaners.”
He also cited a South African raid on a US refugee processing center in December, which the US government called “unacceptable” at the time. The South African government defended the action by saying it had deported seven Kenyans who were working illegally in the country without permits.
“This growing hostility increases the risks for Afrikaners in South Africa, who are already subject to widespread government-sponsored racial discrimination,” the State Department statement said.
Afrikaners are descended from Dutch and French settlers and ruled South Africa during apartheid. They repressed the black majority, keeping them in poverty, while ensuring the safety and wealth of the white minority.
Affirmative action policies since the end of apartheid have helped create a black elite and middle class. However, more than 30 years after Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s first black president, came to power, South Africa remains profoundly unequal. According to official data, around 12% of white South Africans are unemployed, compared to 48% of black South Africans.
Nevertheless, black economic empowerment policies, as well as high crime rates that affect everyone, have fueled a feeling among some white South Africans that they are now victims of racial discrimination.
The white genocide conspiracy theory has also long been a staple of the racist far-right, highlighting incidents in which white farmers were murdered. In recent years, this phenomenon has also been amplified by South African billionaire Elon Musk and right-wing media personality Tucker Carlson.
Associated Press contributed to this report
