The Donald Trump administration plans to cap the number of refugees admitted to the US in 2027 at 17,500, mostly white South Africans. This is stated in a message from the presidential administration to the US Congress, reported the Associated Press, quoted by BTA.
In the notification to Congress, the administration said that white South Africans face the risk of land dispossession and other forms of persecution and that they are likely to integrate when they arrive in America. The South African government has repeatedly denied the claim that white South Africans are a persecuted minority in their homeland.
The Trump administration has dramatically changed Washington’s refugee program, which has allowed tens of thousands of refugees from countries around the world to start new lives in the United States. Instead, the administration has turned it into a tool to resettle white South Africans in the United States.
In its message to Congress, the administration said it intends to spend about $500 million on the new arrivals in the United States.
Organizations that have worked for years to resettle refugees in the country criticized the administration’s decision to once again limit the program to white South Africans.
Presidents set the maximum number of refugees the United States will accept under the program each year. Historically, these numbers have been distributed among different geographic regions, taking into account wars and conflicts that create humanitarian needs around the world. Since the program began in 1980, the United States has admitted an average of 92,000 people annually. 0
Last year, the Trump administration initially set a quota of 7,500 people, mostly Afrikaners, but later increased the number to 17,500 after saying that “unforeseen developments in South Africa have created an extraordinary refugee situation.”
During his first term, Trump significantly reduced the number of refugees approved for admission each year. The administration of Democrat Joe Biden reinstated the program, setting a goal of admitting 125,000 refugees during Biden’s final year in office.
When Trump returned to the White House, he immediately suspended the refugee program, leaving people around the world who had already been approved under it in limbo. The administration then resumed the program, but limited it to white South Africans.
Afrikaners are descendants primarily of Dutch and French colonial settlers who first arrived in South Africa in the 17th century. They are just one of the country's white minority groups, which also include South Africans of British descent.
Afrikaners were at the heart of apartheid, the system of racial segregation in South Africa that lasted from 1948 until 1994, when Nelson Mandela was elected the country's first black president in the country's first democratic elections in which citizens of all races participated.
The leading role of Afrikaners in apartheid contributed to the persistence of some racial tensions, but Afrikaners have generally accepted the country's new multiracial democracy, as have most other South Africans.