The administration of United States President Donald Trump is planning to admit up to 17,500 additional White Afrikaners from South Africa as refugees over the next 12 months.
The plan was contained in a notice sent to Congress on Tuesday and obtained by CBS News.
According to the State Department, the Trump administration intends to allocate 17,500 refugee slots for fiscal year 2027 which begins in October, and the slots will primarily go to Afrikaners who President Trump has claimed are being oppressed for being White.
While the second Trump administration has largely shut down the US refugee resettlement program for most people fleeing persecution and violence globally, it has created an exemption for Afrikaners, resettling thousands of them over the past one and a half years.
Officials of the administration have described Afrikaners as victims of racial oppression in post-apartheid South Africa. The South African government has consistently denied persecuting the ethnic minority, which is made up of descendants of European settlers, mostly from the Netherlands.
“Afrikaners face the seizure of agricultural property without compensation; government policies designed to dismantle equal opportunity in employment, education, and business; and hateful rhetoric fueling disproportionate violence against racially disfavored minorities,” the State Department said in its notice to Congress.
Last week, the US imposed fresh sanctions on South African officials accused of discriminating against Afrikaners.
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