Fifty-nine white South Africans, most of them Afrikaners, arrived at Washington Dulles International Airport on Monday 12 May 2025 aboard a State Department-chartered flight, the first group admitted under US President Donald Trump’s 7 February executive order directing that Afrikaner refugees be prioritised for resettlement.
Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau and Homeland Security Deputy Secretary Troy Edgar met the group at the airport. The administration says the newcomers faced race-based discrimination in South Africa. The South African government rejects that assessment.
The wider US refugee programme remains largely suspended. Resettlement agencies say more than 120,000 conditionally approved refugees are in limbo.
The Arrival
The group landed on Monday afternoon on the government-chartered flight. Reports from NPR, the BBC and NBC News described families with young children, some of them carrying small American flags.
Landau greeted the arrivals. “Welcome to America. I want you to know that you are really welcome here,” he said. He later said the newcomers “tell quite harrowing stories of the violence that they faced in South Africa”.
Officials described the group as the first of more to come. The US embassy in South Africa published a notice for “Afrikaners and disfavored minorities in South Africa who are victims of unjust racial discrimination”.
The Programme
Trump’s order of 7 February pledged help resettling “Afrikaner refugees escaping government-sponsored race-based discrimination” and ended US aid to South Africa. The order was the administration’s response to South Africa’s expropriation law.
Admissions from nearly all other countries remain shut, including for applicants from Afghanistan, Sudan, the Republic of Congo and Myanmar.
The United Nations refugee agency confirmed to the BBC it was not involved in vetting this group, as is usually the case. NPR reported the processing took months rather than years. Resettlement agencies have faced funding and staffing cuts since the refugee programme was paused.
Why the Administration Says They Qualify
Deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller said: “What’s happening in South Africa fits the textbook definition of why the refugee program was created.” Miller also said: “This is persecution based on a protected characteristic, in this case, race. This is race-based persecution.”
Asked why the applications moved faster than others, Trump said: “Farmers are being killed, they happen to be white, but whether they’re white or black makes no difference to me.” He also said a “genocide” was taking place.
State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said: “Today, the United States sends a clear message… that America will take action to protect victims of racial discrimination.”
The Pushback
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said he had told Trump the US assessment was “not true”. “A refugee is someone who has to leave their country out of fear of political persecution, religious persecution, or economic persecution. And they don’t fit that bill,” he said.
The South African government says no land has been seized under the expropriation act. Government spokesperson Chrispin Phiri called the resettlement “entirely politically motivated”.
The BBC notes there is no data backing claims of genocide or mass killing of white farmers. South African police recorded 44 murders on farms and smallholdings in 2024, eight of them farmers, with most people living on farms being black workers.
Human Rights Watch called the policy a “cruel racial twist”, given that other refugees were denied entry. The Episcopal Church ended its federal refugee resettlement partnership. Its presiding bishop, Sean Rowe, wrote that “it has been painful to watch one group of refugees, selected in a highly unusual manner” receive preference while Afghans and Christians fleeing persecution are refused.
The International Refugee Assistance Project’s Melissa Keaney told the BBC the fast tracking was “a lot of hypocrisy and unequal treatment”.
What Next
The embassy notice indicates this is the first cohort of more. Asked whether the wider programme would reopen, Landau said it was “still an ongoing consideration”. The South African government says the group does not meet the refugee definition.
Related: Albanese Defends Student Visa Crackdown as Adelaide University Reports Enrolment Shortfall
Sources: NPR, https://www.npr.org/2025/05/12/g-s1-65984/south-african-afrikaner-refugee-us; BBC News, https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crljn5046epo; NBC News, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/white-south-africans-arrive-us-refugees-protected-trumps-carve-rcna206373
Photo: Ifly6, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Illustrative: an aerial view of Washington Dulles International Airport in Virginia, photographed in August 2024. The photograph does not show the arrivals described in the article or any person involved.
