The United States has granted refugee status to 54 white South Africans Afrikaner, who could arrive on Monday in Washington DC, where it will be greeted by government officials, according to the media.
Donald Trump suspended the American refugee settlement program in January on his first day of mandate, leaving more than 100,000 people approved for blocked resettlement, having fled war and persecution in countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo and Afghanistan.
In February, Trump signed an executive decree ordering his government to grant refugee status to Afrikaners, descendants of Dutch and French colonizers against whom he claimed to be a victim of discrimination.
On Thursday, US officials were trying to organize a charter flight to land at Dulles International Airport, commercial flights being assessed as an alternative, NPR, citing anonymous sources.
The 54 Afrikaners would be satisfied at the airport by “senior officials of state departments and internal security”, a press conference being planned, said NPR, quoting a source which declared that such a reception was unusual.
Some officials told the New York Times that the date of arrival was not yet confirmed, with flow plans.
A spokesperson for the US State Department did not confirm the flight plans, saying: “The United States Embassy in Pretoria has conducted interviews and treatment … Although we cannot comment on individual cases, the State Department favors the consideration for the resettlement of American refugees from Afrikaners in South Africa who are victims of unjust racial discrimination.”
The South South Foreign Affairs Ministry declared in a press release: “It is very regrettable that it seems that the resettlement of South Africans in the United States in the form of refugees ” is entirely politically motivated and designed to question the constitutional democracy of South Africa; a country which has in fact suffered a real persecution under the domination of apartheid and Prevent such levels of discernment from apartheid. “
The speed at which the new refugee program was implemented and the status of refugee granted was faster than normal, a source at NPR told. Before the first Trump administration, it took an average of 18 to 24 months for a refugee reinstalled to the United States, according to American Immigration Council, an NGO supporting immigrants.
NPR listed 12 states that agreed to take Afrikaners, some of whom have a family in the United States, including California, Virginia-Western and New York, said NPR.
The Ministry of Health and Social Services will help South Africans “housing … Basic ameprint, essential household items … grocery store, clothes suitable for weathering, diapers, formulas, hygiene products and prepaid phones”, according to a memo seen by the New York Times.
South Africa was led by Afrikaner White leaders during apartheid, which violently repressed the country’s dark majority.
More than three decades after the end of the reign of white minorities, South Africa remains extremely uneven. Whites generally have 20 times the richness of blacks, according to an article in the review of political economy. The South African black unemployment rate is 46.1%, compared to 9.2% for whites.
According to the 2022 census, the whites represented 7% of the 63 million inhabitants, including about half of the Afrikaners, while the black South Africans represented 81%.
Positive action policies since the end of apartheid have contributed to creating a black elite and a middle class. However, most black South Africans remain poor.
Politicians, as well as high crime rates that affect all South Africans, have also fed the feeling among some white South Africans that they are now victims of targeted racism.
According to an investigation, more than half of white South Africans believe that “black economic empowerment” policies should end, compared to a third of black South Africans.
Trump, as well as his original billionaire advisor from South Africa, Elon Musk and the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, repeated the allegations against whom white South Africans are victims of discrimination.
Trump’s executive decree of Trump has referred to “hateful rhetoric and government actions fueling disproportionate violence against racially disadvantaged land owners”.
In 2018, during his first presidency, Trump also enlarged the non -sustained complaint, popular worldwide in the far right, that white farmers in South Africa were murdered at disproportionately high rates.
US refugee officials were responsible for focusing on the screening of Afrikaner White farmers among the more than 8,000 asylum claims, the New York Times reported.
