Soon after taking office, President Trump shut down refugee resettlement programs, cut billions of dollars in funding, making it impossible for people in many countries to find havens in the United States.
With one exception.
According to documents obtained by the New York Times, the Trump administration opened the door to white Africans in South Africa and helped them come to the United States as refugees by establishing a program called “Mission South Africa.”
In phase one of the program, the US deployed multiple teams to convert commercial office spaces in Pretoria, the capital of South Africa, into an ad hoc refugee centre. The team has investigated more than 8,200 requests to express interest in resettlement in the United States, and has already identified 100 Africans who can approve refugee status. Government officials are instructed to focus on screening especially white African farmers.
The administration also provided security escorts to officials interviewing potential refugees.
By mid-April, US officials on the ground in South Africa “suggest a long-term solution” to ensure the successful implementation of the president's vision for the dignified resettlement of eligible African applicants, according to one memo sent to the Washington State Department for the month by the Embassy in Pretoria.
The administration's focus on white Africans is to effectively ban the invasion of other refugees, including around 20,000 people in Afghanistan, the Congo and Syria, who were ready to travel to the United States before Trump took office. In other court applications on refugees, the administration claimed that the core functions of the refugee program were “dismissed” after the president's ban, so there was no resource to embrace more people.
“There is no subtext and nothing subtle about how this administration's immigration and refugee policies have obvious racial and racist overtones,” says Vanessa Cardenas, executive director of American Voice. “While they are trying to select Africans for special treatment, they at the same time want us to think that despite all the evidence of background checks and against, almost black and brown vetted newcomers are dangerous.”
The program also inserts the United States into arguments charged within South Africa. In South Africa, some members of the white African minority have launched a campaign to suggest that they are true victims of post-South Africa. Under apartheid, a minority of white governments discriminated against South Africa's people of color, cruelty and violence flourished, leading to torture, loss and murder.
There has been the murder of white farmers, a focus of Africa's dissatisfaction, but police statistics show that they are less vulnerable to violent crime than others in the country. In South Africa, more than 90% of the population comes from racial groups persecuted by the racist apartheid regime.
In a statement, the State Department said it was focusing on resettling Africans, who were “victims of unfair racism.” The agency confirmed that it has begun interviewing applicants and said it should pass “strict background and security checks.”
The decision to unlock resources for Africans who have just begun the refugee process requires stone walks to be dealt with people who have fled from other countries where stone walks have already been cleared for travel, and there is a risk of overturning the American refugee program, which has been the basis for the role of vulnerable people, according to resettlement officials.
“We are looking forward to seeing the refugee disposal,” said Melissa Keeney, Senior Supervisor attorney for the International Refugee Assistance Project, a group representing plaintiffs seeking to resume refugee disposal.
Trump signed an executive order to suspend hospitalizations for refugees on his first day in office, arguing that welcoming refugees can compromise resources for Americans. He added that future versions of the program should prioritize “only refugees who can assimilate fully and properly into the United States.”
A federal judge in Seattle then temporarily blocked the executive order and directed the administration to restore the refugee program. But the Trump administration is cutting contracts with organizations that support people applying for refugee status overseas, and reducing the infrastructure needed to help those seeking displacement in the United States.
The appeals court ruled last week that it must admit thousands of people who were given refugee status before Trump took office, but also refused to stop him from stopping hospitalization of new refugees.
The Justice Department has accused weeks of biased demands from refugee advocates of avoiding court orders and delaying the process for almost all refugees who previously granted tickets to come to the United States. The Trump administration refused to provide numbers, but said there were limited numbers of refugees vetted to enter the country.
Justice Department lawyers argue that the administration currently lacks resources to help thousands of refugees, and in reopening the program, the government reserves the right to “do it in a way that reflects the administration's priorities.”
Trump revealed what those priorities were when he created refugee sculptures for white Africans. At the time, Trump accused the South African government of confiscating white African lands, and supported long-standing conspiracy theories about abuse of white South Africans in the post-apartheid era.
Trump was referring to a recent policy signed into law by the South African government known as the expropriation law. It abolishes apartheid-era laws and allows governments to obtain public interest in the public interest in certain instances without paying public interest, without paying public interest, and only after the justification process subject to judicial review.
Trump and his allies have long reflected the dissatisfaction of Africans. During his first term, Trump directed the State Department to investigate the seizure of land and “large killings of farmers.” Born in South Africa, but not in African descent, Elon Musk falsely claims that white South African farmers are killed every day.
Despite the claims, white people make up only 7% of the country's population while owning half of South Africa's land. Police statistics do not show that they are more vulnerable to violent crime than others in the country.
Ernst Loetz, a former African executive director who lobbies to support African interests internationally, said he felt that many of his peers were seen by Trump.
However, he said the creation of a new refugee programme drew debate among Africans. Many people don't want to leave their homes, Roats said, but I hope the US will support its efforts to assert “self-government” in South Africa.
“No one knows what plans to move to America — no one knows,” Roats said. “People who want to come to America, we support that. If people want to move to America, farmers or Africans, I think they'll make good Americans.”
“It fits perfectly,” he added.
Zumbe Balti, a Congolese refugee in South Carolina, said he had been waiting for his turn to be accepted in a refugee camp in Africa for decades.
“Those white Africans are allowed to enter the United States, while black Africans have been denied entry to the United States,” the 29-year-old Balti said in Swahili. He said the pivot from refugees to Africans who have been waiting for camps for years is a form of “discrimination.”
Mr. Balti, a member of the Bembe people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, escaped the country's ethnic violence when he was a child. He was given refugee status in 2023, but his wife and three children (the oldest, the 6-year-old and the youngest) had not yet passed the security screening. He entered the US two years ago and focused on getting a job, saving money and quickly applied to join him.
When he came in, he said he was told by the adviser who helped him with his application that his family would likely join him in two years.
He said that it seems unlikely as Trump focused elsewhere.
“About my family,” Balti said, “Hope has diminished.”
