Read more
Trump set up a programme called “Mission South Africa” offering an expedited pathway to US citizenship for white South Africans.
White South African gathered outside the United States of America Embassy in Pretoria, 15 February 2025, about what is happening in the country unemployment , Land being taken away from them and their Safety and in support of President, Donald Trump on offering farmers refugee status in America . Picture :Nigel Sibanda /The Citizen
US President Donald Trump’s administration is set to bring the first group of white South Africans or Afrikaners it has classified as refugees to the United States early next week.
In March, Trump set up a programme called “Mission South Africa” offering an expedited pathway to US citizenship for white South Africans, falsely claiming that the government was confiscating their land and calling their treatment in the country “terrible.”
According to Trump, “any farmer” who was “seeking to flee South Africa for reasons of safety” could apply to become a US citizen, rather than a refugee.
Although Trump halted virtually all other refugee admissions shortly after he took office in January, his administration hastily put together the “Mission South Africa” program to allow white South Africans into the US, the New York Times reported.
ALSO READ: Trump offers white South African farmers expedited US citizenship
President Cyril Ramaphosa’s spokesperson Vincent Magwenya told The Citizen that the during the call with Trump last month, Ramaphosa told the US president about “true state of South Africa”.
“During the call between President Ramaphosa and President Trump, President Ramaphosa affirmed the truthful nature of the state of our country. He further affirmed that the information President Trump had been given was completely false,” Magwenya said.
“Therefore, our position is that there are no South African citizens that can be classified as refugees to any part of the world, including the US. On the contrary, South Africa has been and remains a home for refugees from all over the world, in particular refugees from parts of our continent embroiled in conflict.
“As we work to normalise relations with the US, we will remain firm on the proper characterisation of our country and the issues that we continue to grapple with and are tackling as an independent sovereign constitutional democracy,” Magwenya said.
In March, Afrikaner lobby groups Solidarity and AfriForum travelled to the United States and handed over the “Washington Memorandum”, asking the US to provide humanitarian assistance for Afrikaner development.
The organisations under the Solidarity Movement met with senior representatives of the Donald Trump administration at the White House.
According to the New York Times report, refugees can often wait years in camps around the world before they are processed and approved to travel to the United States.
Before the first Trump administration, refugee resettlement took an average of 18 to 24 months, according to the American Immigration Council, an advocacy group for immigrants. Many refugees must wait years longer.
The Afrikaners, however, had to wait no more than three months.
ALSO READ: Here’s what happened when the DA visited Washington
Within weeks of announcing that Afrikaners would be eligible for refugee status, the administration deployed teams to Pretoria, to screen white South Africans for consideration, according to the documents obtained by The New York Times.
The teams studied more than 8,000 requests from people expressing interest in becoming refugees, and the U.S. government identified 100 Afrikaners who potentially could be approved.
The Trump administration plans to send government officials to Washington Dulles International Airport in Virginia for an event marking the arrival of the South Africans, who belong to the white minority Afrikaner ethnic group, according to the memo from the Department of Health and Human Services.
It initially planned to welcome the Afrikaners on Monday, but some officials familiar with the matter cautioned that the plans remained in flux, subject to flight logistics and processing of the group.
Trump signed an executive order in February halting federal aid to South Africa after President Cyril Ramaphosa signed the Expropriation Act, which the US president said imposes “unjust racial discrimination” against white Afrikaner farmers.
“To go a step further, any farmer (with family!) from South Africa, seeking to flee that country for reasons of safety, will be invited into the United States of America with a rapid pathway to citizenship. This process will begin immediately!” he wrote in a post on Truth Social.
ALSO READ: US Embassy to submit petition from white South Africans to Trump for ‘immediate action’ [VIDEO]
Download our app