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TRUMP TO WELCOME WHITE SOUTH AFRICANS  
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Katya Schwenk
May 6, 2025
The Lever
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_ Amid a near-total asylum ban, government sources say Trump
officials are planning to use funds for at-risk refugees to facilitate
imminent Afrikaner resettlement. _

In a composite image, President Donald Trump is seen in front of a
South African flag. In a composite image, President Donald Trump is
seen in front of a South African flag., AP Photo/Evan Vucci and Martin
Meissner

 

As President Donald Trump tries to bar almost all refugees from
entering the country, his administration is planning to use federal
funds reserved for sick, elderly, and at-risk refugee populations to
facilitate an influx of white South Africans within days, according to
a government source and an internal memo viewed by _The Lever_.

The first group of Dutch-descended Afrikaners is scheduled to arrive
in the United States imminently, and they will be receiving emergency
support from the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement, a division of
the Department of Health and Human Services, according to the memo,
which was signed by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F.
Kennedy and Office of Refugee Resettlement assistant secretary Andrew
Gradison.

The move follows Trump’s February executive order
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demanding humanitarian relief for Afrikaners. Trump booster Elon Musk
— himself a South African immigrant — has said South Africa’s
government was unfair and racist
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to white people.

Since the executive order, U.S. officials have been interviewing
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white South African applicants who claim to have faced racial
discrimination in postapartheid South Africa. At the same time,
refugees from the rest of the world, some of whom have been waiting
for years to enter the country, have been left in limbo after Trump in
January suspended
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the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, affecting an estimated 20,000
refugees
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set to travel to the U.S. — including 12,000 who already had
flights booked. That ban is currently being challenged
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in court.

In the April 30 memo, which has not previously been reported,
officials with the Office of Refugee Resettlement wrote to Kennedy,
requesting approval for the “mobilization of immediate support for
vulnerable incoming Afrikaner refugees,” including “housing,
health services, and resettlement support upon their arrival.”

The group of Afrikaners, officials wrote, was slated to arrive
“within a few days of this memo,” and therefore officials needed
approval to make emergency arrangements outside of typical refugee
resettlement protocol.

Kennedy signed and approved the document that day.

According to a government source familiar with the plans, the Office
of Refugee Resettlement has preliminary arrangements to use funds from
a program called Preferred Communities
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The program’s website notes that it is for the most vulnerable
refugees arriving in the U.S., including “those with serious medical
conditions, women at risk, and elderly refugees.”

The agency is preparing to resettle as many as 1,000 Afrikaners this
year, the source said.

A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services
responded to a request for comment after publication and confirmed
that Preferred Communities program funding would be used in resettling
Afrikaners.

Last month, U.S. Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas) introduced legislation
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to recognize Afrikaners as Priority 2 refugees — a designation that
they are “of special humanitarian concern,” according to the U.S.
State Department
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Though that legislation has not passed, the Trump administration memo
asserts powers in “emergency circumstances provide assistance to
refugees without regard to select laws and regulations.” 

The use of any refugee resettlement funds — for vulnerable refugees
or not — to support white South Africans has drawn fierce outcry
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Afrikaners, the descendants of Dutch settlers in South Africa,
codified the nation’s apartheid racial segregation system in 1948
and subsequently subjected the country’s Black population to mass
evictions and brutal segregation. 

White South Africans, as the end of apartheid neared in the early
1990s, owned the vast majority of the nation’s land
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Even decades after the end of the apartheid system, white South
Africans still own more than 70 percent
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country’s agricultural land, despite making up less than 10 percent
of the overall population. The government’s efforts at land
redistribution — including a new January land reform law
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address this disparity.

In his February order, Trump claimed that Afrikaners were “escaping
government-sponsored race-based discrimination,” as well as
“racially discriminatory property confiscation,” and demanded that
U.S. officials draft plans to provide relief, including refugee
resettlement, to Afrikaners.

Afrikaners have been vocal supporters
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of Trump, and Musk, who grew up
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in South Africa under apartheid, has been a vocal opponent
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of what he calls
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“racist ownership laws,” in the country. Musk is not himself
Afrikaner but descended from more recent British and Canadian white
settlers in the country. 

Musk has also been vocal about alleged violence against white South
African farmers, claiming in 2023 that
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actually killing white farmers every day.” The country’s courts
have found that such claims are baseless
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In the days after Trump’s order was issued in February, senior White
House officials met with [[link removed]]
AfriForum, a powerful group that advocates for South Africa’s
Afrikaner minority. The group reportedly requested that Trump
intervene in South Africa’s land expropriation policy on behalf
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of white South Africans. 

Though AfriForum formally rejected
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refugee status to Afrikaners, a reported
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8,200 Afrikaners have independently expressed interest in the offer.

At the same time, Trump has been attempting to freeze all other
refugee admissions into the country, including for those fleeing
violence and persecution
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in the Congo, Afghanistan, and Sudan. 

On Monday, a federal judge ordered the government to allow 12,000
refugees
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all those who had already made travel plans to the U.S., into the
country. 

But even if the Trump administration complies with that order,
thousands more asylum-seekers in the middle of an arduous, yearslong
approval
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process will be left stranded — all while the administration
welcomes Afrikaners with open arms.

_EDITOR’S NOTE: This story was updated after publication to reflect
information provided by a spokesperson at the Department of Health and
Human Services._

Each day, The Lever ’s staff tirelessly investigates, researches,
writes, fact-checks, and edits stories that hold the powerful
accountable in ways corporate media will not. All of that work is
supported by readers who become paid supporters.
 

* Trump
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* Afrikaners
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* Racism
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* Immigrants
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