More White Refugees Arriving In America: What to Know
Newsweek has contacted the U.S. Embassy in Pretoria, the State Department and the South Africa's Department of International Relations and Cooperation, via email, for comment.
A group of 59 people made headlines in May when they arrived on a chartered flight at Dulles International Airport in Virginia as party of the Afrikaner resettlement program.
Donald Trump's administration believes that Afrikaners are being persecuted in South Africa as victims of racially-motivated violence – something vehemently denied by the South African government.
The program came despite Trump's suspension of the State Department's refugee admissions program, which he said at the time was because the U.S. "lacks the ability to absorb large numbers of migrants, and in particular, refugees, into its communities in a manner that does not compromise the availability of resources for Americans, that protects their safety and security, and that ensures the appropriate assimilation of refugees."
A small group of Afrikaners, including children, quietly arrived in Atlanta on a commercial flight on Friday, said Jaco Kleynhans, head of Public Relations for the trade union Solidarity, which has helped some applicants with parts of the Afrikaner refugee process.
"They are settling in states across the USA, but particularly southern states such as Texas, North and South Carolina, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Nebraska," Kleynhans told the South African media outlet Independent Online (IOL).
This group consisted of nine people, according to the Associated Press which also cited Kleynhans.
Several more groups are expected to fly to the U.S. over the next few weeks with the U.S. Embassy in Pretoria and the State Department in Washington, D.C., currently processing 8,000 applications, according to Kleynhans.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Embassy said: "Refugees continue to arrive in the United States from South Africa on commercial flights as part of the Afrikaner resettlement program's ongoing operations."
The U.S. is "reaching out to eligible individuals for refugee interviews and processing," a spokesperson from the U.S. Mission to South Africa told local outlet News24.
Nearly 50,000 South Africans have inquired about the resettlement program, the U.S. State Department told The New York Times.
Kleynhanssaid: "The American refugee programs are paid for by American taxpayers and it is outrageous that international organizations and foreign groups think they can dictate to the Trump administration who should be eligible for refugee status. If Americans disagree with Trump on this, they can elect a different president in three years."
South Africa's Ministry of International Relations and Cooperation has previously said in a statement about the issue: "It is most regrettable that it appears that the resettlement of South Africans to the United States under the guise of being 'refugees' is entirely politically motivated and designed to question South Africa's constitutional democracy; a country which has in fact suffered true persecution under Apartheid rule and has worked tirelessly to prevent such levels of discrimination from ever occurring again."
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa told reporters on May 17: "There's no genocide in South Africa. That is a fact that's borne out of a lot of evidence."
White House deputy chief of staff and Homeland Security adviser Stephen Miller defended the program to reporters, saying: "What's happening in South Africa fits the textbook definition of why the refugee program was created. This is race-based persecution. The refugee program is not intended as a solution for global poverty, and historically, it has been used that way."
More Afrikaners are expected to arrive in the United States, depending on the outcome of their refugee status applications.
Applicants "must be able to articulate a past experience of persecution or fear of future persecution," a guide to the program says.
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