Trump puts white South Africans on citizenship fast track while rejecting all other refugees: ‘As subtle as an air raid’

Since taking office, Donald Trump’s administration has virtually shut down refugee admissions and blocked funding for resettlement groups, stranding thousands of people who were granted entry to the United States for humanitarian protections only to have those offers rescinded.

But the president has singled out one specific group of people who will be allowed entry into the United States and appear to be on a fast track to citizenship: white South Africans.

A group of 59 white South Africans admitted to the United States as “refugees” have been “essentially extended citizenship,” Trump said on Monday.

They were greeted by State Department officials on Monday after landing at Washington Dulles International Airport on a taxpayer-funded flight following their fast-tracked refugee vetting process under the administration’s radically reshaped admissions program.

The president claims white South Africans are victims of “genocide,” echoing a white supremacist conspiracy theory alleging immigration and forced assimilation threaten the existence of white people — a claim that has fueled racist hate and violence against minority groups as well as parallel conspiracy theories like the so-called “great replacement” theory.

Trump and his Republican allies have routinely amplified a bogus “great replacement” theory that claims Democratic officials are allowing immigrants into the country to manipulate elections. The idea is behind Trump’s anti-immigration agenda as well his executive orders and legislation in Congress taking aim at voter registration and election administration.

“When it comes to race and immigration issues, the Trump administration is about as subtle as an air raid,” America's Voice executive director Vanessa Cárdenas said in a statement to The Independent.

“While they single out white Afrikaners for special treatment and resettlement, they falsely slander Black and brown refugees and immigrants as dangerous threats and ‘invaders’ — including those who have been vetted with background checks — despite all of the statistical evidence to the contrary,” she added. “It’s inherently hypocritical and ugly, but unfortunately par for the course for this administration.”

The president has previously compared efforts from the South African government to combat racial inequalities from apartheid to anti-white discrimination, and South African officials have accused the administration of using claims from white Afrikaners to undermine the country’s genocide case against Israel now before the International Court of Justice.

White Afrikaners, descendants of Europeans who arrived in the country centuries ago, claim to have been denied jobs and become targets of violence for their race — claims that exploded with new legislation regulating property expropriation.

Viral misinformation claimed dozens of daily murders of white farmers. But it’s been estimated that roughly 50 farmers total, from all racial groups, were killed annually in a country that recorded more than 19,000 murders between January and September 2024.

Still, Trump announced in February he was cutting off funding to South Africa — most of which goes to efforts to combat HIV/AIDS — because the government was “confiscating land” and “treating certain classes of people very badly.”

Trump’s adviser Elon Musk — born to a wealthy family in Pretoria — called South Africa’s property law “openly racist” and accused a Black nationalist political party of “actively promoting white genocide.”

White farmers own roughly 70 percent of commercial farmland in the country despite white South Africans making up about 7 percent of the population. Fewer than 150 attacks involving farmers occurred during the entirety of 2023, according to the Afrikaaner political group AfriForum.

Shortly after taking office, the Trump administration froze refugee admissions, blocking people fleeing famine and war from countries like Afghanistan, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Within just two days of Trump’s inauguration, resettlement groups were blindsided by the administration’s order to suspend all refugee entries and cancel all flights for incoming refugees — even for thousands of people who were already cleared for entry with U.S. sponsorships and support from families and aid groups.

In February, the administration also abruptly announced plans to terminate contracts with refugee resettlement and assistance groups 24 hours after a federal judge ordered the government to restore funding to aid organizations.

Brief messages from the State Department told refugee groups that their contracts were “terminated for the convenience of the U.S. Government pursuant to a directive” from Secretary of State Marco Rubio for “alignment with agency priorities and the national interest.”

Other messages told aid groups that funding is “immediately terminated” because it “no longer effectuates agency priorities,” according to court filings and statements to The Independent.

Earlier this month, a federal court ordered the administration to put forward a plan for resettling roughly 12,000 refugees who had flights booked for the United States when Trump’s refugee ban was announced. The lead plaintiff in that case, a refugee from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, was approved for resettlement and scheduled to travel to the United States on January 22 with his wife and baby son.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court for permission to strip temporary protected legal status for tens of thousands of Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans.

The same day Trump announced the arrival of white South African refugees, the administration stripped temporary protected status for Afghans already in the United States, formally lifting a shield that protects them from being deported.

The administration argues that conditions in the Taliban-run country no longer merit protections for their stay in the United States.

Asked on Monday why white South Africans are the exception, Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau told reporters that criteria for refugee admissions include whether they can be “assimilated easily into our country.”

“The president has recognized the dire situation for this particular group of people,” he said.

Asked why he carved out refugee admissions for a group of white South Africans while suspending resettlement for all other vulnerable groups, Trump told reporters: “Because they’re being killed, and we don’t want to see people killed.”

“It’s a genocide that’s taking place that you people don’t want to write about,” he told reporters on Monday.

“Farmers are being killed. They happen to be white. But whether they’re white or Black makes no difference to me. But white farmers are being brutally killed and their land is being confiscated in South Africa,” according to Trump. “I don’t care who they are. I don’t care who they are. I don’t care about their race, their color, I don’t care about their height, their weight.”

Refugees typically cover the cost of their own travel to the United States through interest-free loans that must be paid back. But the State Department-chartered flight that brought a group of South Africans to the United States comes at taxpayers’ expense.

“Thousands of refugees have been thrust into limbo after clearing an extensive vetting process, including Afghan allies, religious minorities, and other families facing extreme persecution,” Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president of national refugee settlement nonprofit group Global Refugee, said in a statement to The Independent.

“As we see the system restart, it’s imperative that the U.S. government act to welcome all refugees who meet longstanding legal standards, regardless of their nationality,” she said.