The Trump administration on Monday welcomed 59 white South Africans as refugees, saying they face discrimination and violence at home, which the country’s government strongly denies, reports AP.
The South Africans were welcomed by officials in an airport hangar outside Washington. They were then leaving on other flights to various US destinations.
A group of 49 Afrikaners had been expected, but the State Department said Monday that 59 had arrived.
President Donald Trump told reporters earlier Monday that he is admitting them as refugees because of the “genocide that’s taking place.” He said that, in post-apartheid South Africa, white farmers are “being killed” and he plans to address the issue with South African leadership next week.
South Africa’s government says the US allegations that the white minority Afrikaners are being persecuted are “completely false” and that Afrikaners are among the richest and most successful people in the country.
Speaking at a business conference in Ivory Coast, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa stated groups who were casting white people as victims were spreading false information because of efforts to right the historical wrongs of colonialism and South Africa’s previous apartheid system of forced racial segregation, which oppressed the black majority.
“I had a conversation with President Trump on the phone and he asked me, ‘What’s going on down there?’ and I told him that what you are being told by those people who are opposed to transformation back in South Africa is not true,” Ramaphosa said.
The Trump administration has falsely claimed that white South Africans are having their land taken away by the government under a new expropriation law that promotes “racially discriminatory property confiscation.” No land has been expropriated.
“There is no data at all that backs that there is persecution of white South Africans or white Afrikaners, in particular who are farmers,” South African Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola said Monday. “White farmers get affected by crime just like any other South Africans who do get affected by crime. So, this is not factual, it is without basis.”
The decision to admit the Afrikaners also has raised questions from refugee advocates about why they were admitted when the Trump administration has suspended efforts to resettle people fleeing war and persecution who have gone through years of vetting.
Trump indefinitely suspended the refugee resettlement program on his first day in office. A month later, he announced a plan to resettle white South African farmers and their families as refugees.
Senator Jeanne Shaheen said in a statement on Monday, “The Administration must clarify why these individuals qualify for refugee status and resettlement in the US and why they have been prioritised over refugees like Afghans, Burmese Rohingya, and Sudanese who have fled their homes due to conflict and persecution.”
According to the US Embassy in South Africa, applicants have to be South African citizens who are of Afrikaner ethnicity or a member of a racial minority, and they have to be able to show a history of or a fear of persecution.
Afrikaners, who are the descendants of mainly Dutch and French colonial settlers, number around 2.7 million among South Africa’s population of 62 million, which is more than 80% Black.