Outside the Beltway

The Case of the Afrikaners

What it tells us about race and the Trump administration.

Steven L. Taylor · Wednesday, May 14, 2025 · 14 comments

This is a long post as I want to both make sure that I understand the situation sufficiently as well as provide useful information to the readers. I will, however, start off with my basic conclusions because I don’t want them to be lost.

I think that the policy move discussed in this piece shows several things.

1. It is possible to quickly and easily provide asylum to immigrants if the administration wants to (and yes, I acknowledge the scale issue, but that could be handled if we wanted to). This fact undercuts a lot of their rhetoric on the subject and shows that the main problem with immigrants is not that they don’t do it the “right way,” it is that we do not provide that “right way” (at least not an easy “right way”). I would hasten to add, however, that a lot of immigrants who have crossed into the US from the south did do it the “right way” via seeking asylum (and every single international student definitionally did it the “right way”). They just didn’t have the red carpet rolled out for them.
2. It is impossible to ignore the fact that this administration constantly casts immigrants from Latin America as being criminals, terrorists, and gang members while White Afrikaner farmers are welcomed in with open arms. Non-whites are called “the worst of the worst” without any evidence or due process. Rounding up the brown people is a major policy initiative for this administration.
3. This is clearly Trump buying into narratives from the South African far-right and underscores the undue influence of Elon Musk.

Let me also note, from the top, that I have no objection to Afrikaners being granted asylum in the abstract. I am not upset that White people are getting refugee status or anything of the sort. I object because there are manifestly more needy persons around the globe who would meet the standards for refugee status in ways these people appear not to, and yet the Trump administration has slammed the door on those people (and in some cases, likely sent them to CECOT).

To add background in case someone wishes to assert I am being hyperbolic.

First, there was an Executive Order on day one that sought the “realignment” of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program.

Sec. 3.  Realignment of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program.  (a)  I hereby proclaim, pursuant to sections 212(f) and 215(a) of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1182(f) and 1185(a), that entry into the United States of refugees under the USRAP would be detrimental to the interests of the United States.  I therefore direct that entry into the United States of refugees under the USRAP be suspended — subject to the exceptions set forth in subsection (c) of this section — until a finding is made in accordance with section 4 of this order.  This suspension shall take effect at 12:01 am eastern standard time on January 27, 2025.

It strikes me that this passage is noteworthy:

It is the policy of the United States to ensure that public safety and national security are paramount considerations in the administration of the USRAP, and to admit only those refugees who can fully and appropriately assimilate into the United States and to ensure that the United States preserves taxpayer resources for its citizens.  It is also the policy of the United States that, to the extent permitted by law and as practicable, State and local jurisdictions be granted a role in the process of determining the placement or settlement in their jurisdictions of aliens eligible to be admitted to the United States as refugees.

I expect that Trump thinks that the Afrikaners can “fully appropriately assimilate” but doesn’t think that Venezuelans and Salvadorans can (despite, btw, evidence to the contrary). Gee, I wonder why?

I would underscore that if one thinks that certain groups can’t “appropriately assimilate,” it is almost certainly because one has racist views of human society. The evidence of all manner of persons assimilating over time into US society is overwhelmingly positive. I would go on, but this post is crazy long as it is.

I will just add some news stories.

• Via World Politics Review: Trump Could Be the Final Nail in the Coffin for U.S. Refugee Admissions.
• Via Houston Landing: Halt of refugee programs creates fears for Houston Afghans with family stuck in Afghanistan.
• Via the Tucson Sentinel: Pima County will shutter migrant shelters by Sunday as Trump admin curtails releases.
• Via The Christian Century: Trump admin cancels grants to refugee aid agencies, despite legal battles.

I could go on and on, but the point should be made.

Now on to the main post.

Early this week, a group of 59 Afrikaners (white South Africans descended from Dutch colonialists) arrived in the US as refugees. The BBC reports: Dozens of white South Africans arrive in US under Trump refugee plan

President Donald Trump has said the refugee applications for the country’s Afrikaner minority had been expedited as they were victims of “racial discrimination”.

The South African government said the group were not suffering any such persecution that would merit refugee status.

The Trump administration has halted all other refugee admissions, including for applicants from warzones. Human Rights Watch described the move as a cruel racial twist, saying that thousands of people – many black and Afghan refugees – had been denied refuge in the US.

[…]

The processing of refugees in the US often takes months, even years, but this group has been fast tracked. UNHCR – the United Nations refugee agency – confirmed to the BBC it wasn’t involved in the vetting, as is usually the case.

Asked directly on Monday why the Afrikaners’ refugee applications had been processed faster than other groups, Trump said a “genocide” was taking place and that “white farmers” specifically were being targeted.

“Farmers are being killed, they happen to be white, but whether they’re white or black makes no difference to me.” 

Race is irrelevant, except that it is part of his core rationale for granting asylum in the first place.

If the issue was merely fear of violence in South Africa in general and regardless of race, then there would be far more Black South Africans being admitted on asylum grounds (see the discussion below about the murder rate). Basic math would dictate such an outcome, given that Blacks well outnumber Whites in SA.

Meanwhile, the South African government contests the Trump administration’s description of the situation.

But South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said he told Trump during a phone call the US assessment of the situation was “not true”. 

“A refugee is someone who has to leave their country out of fear of political persecution, religious persecution, or economic persecution,” Ramaphosa said. “And they don’t fit that bill.”

Likewise, the BBC reports Claims of white genocide ‘not real’, South African court rules.

A South African court has dismissed claims of a white genocide in the country as “clearly imagined” and “not real”, undermining comments made by US President Donald Trump and his adviser Elon Musk.

The ruling came as the court blocked a wealthy benefactor’s donation to white supremacist group Boerelegioen.

[…]

The status of white South African farmers has long been a rallying cry on the right and far-right of American politics.

But despite numerous claims in the past of the systematic targeting of the country’s white Afrikaner minority group, local crime statistics figures paint a different picture.

South Africa does not release crime figures based on race but the latest figures revealed that 6,953 people were murdered in the country between October and December 2024. 

Of these, 12 were killed in farm attacks. Of the 12, one was a farmer, while five were farm dwellers and four were employees, who are likely to have been black.

Now, on the one hand, one would expect the country from which people are fleeing to claim that everything is fine. As such, the following from the Trump administration (from the first BBC link) sounds reasonable on one level

In response to a question from the BBC at Dulles airport, Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau said: “It is not surprising, unfortunately, that a country from which refugees come does not concede that they are refugees.”

However, on the other hand, South Africa is a functioning democracy, even if it continues to have challenges. It is true, for example, that South Africa has a high murder rate, indeed, one of the highest in the world at 43.72 per 100,000 residents in 2022. By comparison, the US rate for the same year was 6.51 (source).

While that stat might feed into the violence-against-Whites narrative, the BBC reported the following in May of 2024:

Attacks on white farmers have received global attention.

In 2018 President Donald Trump posted a tweet suggesting the South African government was seizing land from white farmers, which was untrue. He also cited the “large-scale killing of farmers”.

In July last year, the Pretoria-born head of Tesla, Elon Musk, added to the narrative in another tweet about the opposition Economic Freedom Fighters party, saying: “They are openly pushing for genocide of white people in South Africa.”

There is no evidence farmers are at any greater risk than anyone else.

Statistics show white South Africans are just over 7% of the population but make up less than 2% of murder victims, however the fear among the farming community is real.

It is striking that the claims of attacks on whites are coming from a far-right organization.

This 2020 story from the NYT is also of interest: New Arrests in Killing of White South African Farmer.

The murder attracted global attention: A white South African farmer was shot dead in his home last year, not long after seeing his vineyards invaded by shack dwellers.

The farmer, Stefan Smit, reported receiving death threats after seeking to evict the squatters, whose housing occupation had become a flash point in a wider political fight over land in South Africa.

So when Mr. Smit was killed in June 2019, some people saw the case as evidence of targeted attacks against white farmers — a rallying point among local white minority rights groups and their allies in the United States who claim, in spite of contrary evidence, that white farmers are killed at higher rates than other South Africans.

That narrative has been upended now, after the arrest of three people on murder charges — including Zurenah Smit, 54, Mr. Smit’s widow.

As best as I can tell, Zurenah Smit is currently standing trial for the murder of her husband.

I note this because it was a story that was at one point part of this narrative that Whites were under attack by Blacks in South Africa (see, e.g., Fox News in 2019: South African farmer in land dispute shot dead by gunmen). And as the AFP reported recently, there are numerous memes on social media on this subject (False data distort complex picture of South African farm murders).

See also, via NBC News: How a land law sparked Elon Musk’s accusations of ‘genocide’ against his home country.

According to South African government data from 2022, around 7% of the population of South Africa is white.

But, in a hangover from the country’s apartheid system of white minority rule that ended 30 years ago, white farmers own approximately three-quarters of South Africa’s land.

In addition, South Africa’s white working population earns nearly three times the average wage of Black workers, according to 2022 World Bank figures.

So, while I have seen nothing to evaluate regarding the specifics of the 59 Afrikaners who have been granted asylum, I think the stats are pretty clear that the conditions in South Africa do not constitute a situation of grave conditions that would likely spark the need for the US to grant asylum. They certainly are not the conditions of a “genocide.” Indeed, to use the term in this context is grotesque and cheapens its significance.

I note this not to dismiss real violence that is taking place, but rather to try and provide actual context, which is needed for things like refugee status evaluation.

But there is no evidence of such a killing spree, experts have said. In 2018, former U.S. Ambassador to South Africa Patrick Gaspard called the idea of a white genocide a disproven myth.

Gareth Newham, head of the justice and violence prevention program at the Institute of Security Studies in South Africa, says that white farmers are most likely targeted because they are relatively wealthy and vulnerable because they live in remote areas, not because of their race.

“Far-right-wing groups in South Africa actively go to America and promulgate this idea of a white genocide because, of course, when you have a high murder rate, white people do get murdered,” Newham said, adding that the proportion of white people murdered is lower than other race groups, not higher.

More likely than not is a combination of long-term resentments over the end of Apartheid among some White South Africans, heightened fear over crime, and concern that the government will actually address a situation in which Whites are 7% of the population but own almost 75% of the land.

All of that is copious backstory for me to make two key points about the Trump administration’s willingness to grant asylum to these people.

First and foremost: it can be done. It is actually possible to create legal pathways for persons to immigrate to the United States under existing law.

The reality is that if the standard is that he doesn’t want to see people killed, then there are objectively more dangerous places in the world, but this administration has told those people to sod off, including people who helped the US in Afghanistan.

So, let’s be clear, Trump is clearly illustrating that all of this is a choice.

But let’s be clear on the other major issue here. He may state that he doesn’t care what color they are, but he clearly does. He is cleaving to far-right South African propaganda to allow White people in while constantly asserting that all the brown people who come in from the south are all terrorists, gang members, and the worst of the worst.

The pattern and rhetoric are clear. Recall from the first term via WaPo: Trump derides protections for immigrants from ‘shithole’ countries.

President Trump grew frustrated with lawmakers Thursday in the Oval Office when they discussed protecting immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador and African countries as part of a bipartisan immigration deal, according to several people briefed on the meeting.

“Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?” Trump said, according to these people, referring to countries mentioned by the lawmakers.

Trump then suggested that the United States should instead bring more people from countries such as Norway, whose prime minister he met with Wednesday. The president, according to a White House official, also suggested he would be open to more immigrants from Asian countries because he felt that they help the United States economically.

In addition, the president singled out Haiti, telling lawmakers that immigrants from that country must be left out of any deal, these people said.

tl;dr: Yes, the US government can welcome in refugees, but despite having largely gutted those programs, we can find some room for some more White folks.

To be clear: I support letting in legitimate refugees regardless of their color. That, however, does not appear to be true for the Trump administration.

In case anyone doesn’t get it, this is just more evidence of the White Nationalist ideology that pervades the White House.

If this is not concerning to you, I would suggest that a little soul searching is in order.

See also The Atlantic: America Is the Land of Opportunity—For White South Africans.