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A refugee program under the Trump administration has sparked accusations of racial discrimination after it was revealed that the initiative is designed to exclusively benefit white South Africans, sidelining the majority Black population of the country who have long faced systemic economic and social inequalities.
In a report published by NewsOne, award-winning journalist and historian Dr. Stacey Patton highlighted how the Trump-era State Department quietly launched a refugee program aimed at welcoming white South Africans, specifically Afrikaners, claiming they are persecuted minorities under the post-apartheid Black-led government.
The program was never formally announced but has come under scrutiny for what many say is a blatant attempt to use immigration policy to reinforce white supremacy and racial preference.
“This program is being sold as humanitarian, but in truth, it is a thinly veiled attempt to import whiteness under the guise of rescue. It is one of the most openly racist immigration initiatives to surface in recent U.S. history,” Dr. Patton wrote.
The refugee program was quietly introduced in 2019 during Donald Trump’s presidency. Its existence remained mostly unknown to the public until investigative journalists and advocacy organizations began to uncover a pattern of U.S. government support for white Afrikaners seeking asylum.
According to Dr. Patton, the U.S. began processing white South Africans as refugees, citing violence and fear of land expropriation without compensation as justifications, despite the lack of statistical evidence showing Afrikaners are being systematically targeted or persecuted.
Critics argue that this initiative not only distorts the reality of life in South Africa, but also reflects a dangerous precedent in how the United States applies refugee and asylum laws based on race.
The program seems to be a deliberate effort to create an exclusive pathway for white refugees at a time when Black and brown migrants, especially from Haiti, Central America, and African countries, are being denied entry, deported, or forced to remain in dangerous conditions.
As Dr. Patton points out, “White South Africans are not a marginalized population by any credible definition. They still control most of the country’s wealth and land. They’re not being genocided. They’re being inconvenienced by the slow, halting pace of Black liberation.”
The background to this refugee program traces back to a decades-old narrative promoted by white nationalist and right-wing groups in the United States. These groups have long framed white South Africans as the victims of post-apartheid governance, creating the illusion of “white genocide” as a rallying cry to defend whiteness globally.
In another investigative article, further details show how this narrative has steadily gained ground in conservative U.S. circles, leading to policy shifts that prioritize white Afrikaners.
The story documents how America’s political and religious right have adopted white South African farmers as symbols of a so-called war on white civilization.
White nationalist forums, far-right blogs, and even mainstream conservative commentators have pushed the claim that white South Africans are under siege, despite the facts.
That background piece, published earlier this year, reported how American evangelical churches, Republican lawmakers, and right-wing think tanks have coordinated efforts to portray white South African farmers as persecuted Christians deserving of American refuge.
These actors present their flight to the U.S. not as economic migration or voluntary relocation, but as rescue from racial retribution.
At the center of this narrative is a distorted view of post-apartheid South Africa, where efforts to redistribute land and correct historical injustices are framed as reverse racism.
In 2018, the South African government proposed a policy of land expropriation without compensation to address the legacy of land theft and economic exclusion caused by apartheid. The proposed policy sent waves through the global right-wing media landscape, prompting widespread backlash from conservatives in the U.S. and beyond.
In response, President Donald Trump tweeted that his administration would look into “land and farm seizures” and “the large-scale killing of farmers,” citing a report by Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
The tweet gave legitimacy to the “white genocide” narrative, despite repeated denials and clarifications from the South African government and human rights organizations that no such genocide is taking place.
The current refugee policy appears to be a continuation of that narrative. It now offers Afrikaners a chance to settle in the United States, claiming political and racial persecution.
Meanwhile, the same administration implemented travel bans on predominantly Muslim countries, enforced Title 42 to rapidly expel migrants during the pandemic, and ended Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitians, among other actions that disproportionately harmed non-white populations.
Dr. Patton’s article strongly criticizes this double standard. “It’s not about safety. It’s about skin. “This is an attempt to rescue whiteness, to replenish the demographic composition of a country that is browning faster than white supremacists are comfortable with,” she wrote.
She notes that the selective application of humanitarian concern reveals the true intention behind the program: to reinforce the idea that whiteness is in need of saving, even when no legitimate persecution exists.
Meanwhile, those who are genuinely facing hunger, poverty, war, and natural disasters continue to face rejection at U.S. borders simply because of their skin color or country of origin.
The implications of this program stretch beyond South Africa. Critics warn that this signals a broader shift in immigration policy that prioritizes ideology over humanity, granting refuge not based on need, but on race, religion, and political utility.
In the face of these revelations, human rights organizations, immigration advocates, and Black political leaders have called for a review and possible termination of the program.
They argue that America’s refugee policies must be race-neutral, rooted in evidence, and guided by international law, not used as tools to reward whiteness and punish Blackness.
“This isn’t just about who gets in. It’s about whose lives are seen as worth saving,” Dr. Patton concluded.
As of now, the State Department has not publicly addressed the criticism or provided transparency on how many white South Africans have been admitted under the program.
By: Joshua Narh