…49 Afrikaners arrived in the United States on Monday May 12 as “refugees.” President Trump gave them priority status, which means they waited no more than three months for their resettlement. Many refugees from other countries are forced to wait 18 to 24 months, and sometimes even years, for their resettlement assignment. Trump banned virtually all other refugees on his first day in office, including people fleeing active war zones like the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, and others.
White South Africans have made unsubstantiated claims of reverse racism and genocide, which have been echoed by Trump.
Since taking office, Donald Trump’s administration has virtually shut down refugee admissions and blocked funding for resettlement groups, stranding thousands of people who were granted entry to the United States for humanitarian protections only to have those offers rescinded.
But the president has singled out one specific group of people who will be allowed entry into the United States and appear to be on a fast track to citizenship: white South Africans.
A group of 59 white South Africans admitted to the United States as “refugees” have been “essentially extended citizenship,” Trump said on Monday.
A group of South Africans are welcomed by Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau at Washington Dulles International Airport on May 12 (Getty Images)
They were greeted by State Department officials on Monday after landing at Washington Dulles International Airport on a taxpayer-funded flight following their fast-tracked refugee vetting process under the administration’s radically reshaped admissions program.
The president claims white South Africans are victims of “genocide,” echoing a white supremacist conspiracy theory alleging immigration and forced assimilation threaten the existence of white people — a claim that has fueled racist hate and violence against minority groups as well as parallel conspiracy theories like the so-called “great replacement” theory.
Trump and his Republican allies have routinely amplified a bogus “great replacement” theory that claims Democratic officials are allowing immigrants into the country to manipulate elections. The idea is behind Trump’s anti-immigration agenda as well his executive orders and legislation in Congress taking aim at voter registration and election administration.
“When it comes to race and immigration issues, the Trump administration is about as subtle as an air raid,” America’s Voice executive director Vanessa Cárdenas said in a statement to The Independent.
“While they single out white Afrikaners for special treatment and resettlement, they falsely slander Black and brown refugees and immigrants as dangerous threats and ‘invaders’ — including those who have been vetted with background checks — despite all of the statistical evidence to the contrary,” she added. “It’s inherently hypocritical and ugly, but unfortunately par for the course for this administration.”
The president has previously compared efforts from the South African government to combat racial inequalities from apartheid to anti-white discrimination, and South African officials have accused the administration of using claims from white Afrikaners to undermine the country’s genocide case against Israel now before the International Court of Justice.
White Afrikaners, descendants of Europeans who arrived in the country centuries ago, claim to have been denied jobs and become targets of violence for their race — claims that exploded with new legislation regulating property expropriation.
Viral misinformation claimed dozens of daily murders of white farmers. But it’s been estimated that roughly 50 farmers total, from all racial groups, were killed annually in a country that recorded more than 19,000 murders between January and September 2024.
Still, Trump announced in February he was cutting off funding to South Africa — most of which goes to efforts to combat HIV/AIDS — because the government was “confiscating land” and “treating certain classes of people very badly.”
Trump’s adviser Elon Musk — born to a wealthy family in Pretoria — called South Africa’s property law “openly racist” and accused a Black nationalist political party of “actively promoting white genocide.”
White farmers own roughly 70 percent of commercial farmland in the country despite white South Africans making up about 7 percent of the population. Fewer than 150 attacks involving farmers occurred during the entirety of 2023, according to the Afrikaaner political group AfriForum.
Trump claimed white South Africans are victims of ‘genocide’ as he defended his administration granting them refugee status while stripping refugee admissions for virtually all other groups (REUTERS)
Shortly after taking office, the Trump administration froze refugee admissions, blocking people fleeing famine and war from countries like Afghanistan, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Within just two days of Trump’s inauguration, resettlement groups were blindsided by the administration’s order to suspend all refugee entries and cancel all flights for incoming refugees — even for thousands of people who were already cleared for entry with U.S. sponsorships and support from families and aid groups.
In February, the administration also abruptly announced plans to terminate contracts with refugee resettlement and assistance groups 24 hours after a federal judge ordered the government to restore funding to aid organizations.
Brief messages from the State Department told refugee groups that their contracts were “terminated for the convenience of the U.S. Government pursuant to a directive” from Secretary of State Marco Rubio for “alignment with agency priorities and the national interest.”
Other messages told aid groups that funding is “immediately terminated” because it “no longer effectuates agency priorities,” according to court filings and statements to The Independent.
Earlier this month, a federal court ordered the administration to put forward a plan for resettling roughly 12,000 refugees who had flights booked for the United States when Trump’s refugee ban was announced. The lead plaintiff in that case, a refugee from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, was approved for resettlement and scheduled to travel to the United States on January 22 with his wife and baby son.
“Refugee resettlement existed as a successful bipartisan humanitarian program for decades until President Trump suspended resettlement through a cruel and unlawful Executive Order on day one of his administration,” International Refugee Assistance Project senior supervising attorney Melissa Keaney said in a statement to The Independent.
“Refugees, including those who were already approved and scheduled to travel to the United States, had their dreams of a new beginning ripped from them, leaving them in an uncertain and unsafe limbo,” she added. “Admitting Afrikaners through a fast and efficient process while ignoring multiple court orders to process refugees who have been waiting for years to restart their lives in safety represents yet another attempt to politicize refugee resettlement by the Trump administration.”
The same day Trump announced the arrival of white South African refugees, the administration stripped temporary protected status for Afghans already in the United States, formally lifting a shield that protects them from being deported.
The administration argues that conditions in the Taliban-run country no longer merit protections for their stay in the United States.
Asked on Monday why white South Africans are the exception, Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau told reporters that criteria for refugee admissions include whether they can be “assimilated easily into our country.”
“The president has recognized the dire situation for this particular group of people,” he said.
Tshishiku Henry, a former refugee and Washington State Delegate for the Refugee Congress, speaks during a rally outside a federal courthouse after a judge blocked Trump’s effort to halt the nation’s refugee admissions system in February (AP)
Asked why he carved out refugee admissions for a group of white South Africans while suspending resettlement for all other vulnerable groups, Trump told reporters: “Because they’re being killed, and we don’t want to see people killed.”
“It’s a genocide that’s taking place that you people don’t want to write about,” he told reporters on Monday.
“Farmers are being killed. They happen to be white. But whether they’re white or Black makes no difference to me. But white farmers are being brutally killed and their land is being confiscated in South Africa,” according to Trump. “I don’t care who they are. I don’t care who they are. I don’t care about their race, their color, I don’t care about their height, their weight.”
Refugees typically cover the cost of their own travel to the United States through interest-free loans that must be paid back. But the State Department-chartered flight that brought a group of South Africans to the United States comes at taxpayers’ expense.
“Thousands of refugees have been thrust into limbo after clearing an extensive vetting process, including Afghan allies, religious minorities, and other families facing extreme persecution,” Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president of national refugee settlement nonprofit group Global Refuge, said in a statement to The Independent.
“As we see the system restart, it’s imperative that the U.S. government act to welcome all refugees who meet longstanding legal standards, regardless of their nationality,” she said.
Invitation to remember and celebrate in Benicia on Sunday, April 28
[Contribution by Rev. Dr. Mary Susan Gast of Benicia]
Many of us were involved in anti-apartheid work, especially in the 1980’s and 1990’s. Thirty years ago this Saturday the new flag of national unity first flew over South Africa, and the first elections open to all races brought in a new era for South Africa—as well as a triumph of democracy in which the whole world could rejoice and be heartened. As we face into this crucial election year in the U.S. it’s good to remember the power of the vote and the power of the people.
On Sunday, April 28, I will be delivering a sermon/message in celebration of South Africa Freedom Day, recounting my experience as a peace monitor at the South Africa elections in 1994 and offering my reflections. You would be more than welcome to attend: 10 a.m. at Community Congregational Church, UCC, 1305 West 2nd St., Benicia.
Repost from Inter Press Service [Editor: Significant quote: “’Under pressure from the fossil fuel industry – which has deep pockets and promises employment and investment – several governments have already started to weaken their environmental legislation, alter their tax regimes and put in place industry-friendly mining licensing and production processes, in order to attract foreign investors and expertise….’” See especially U.S. government promotion below. – RS]
First Phase of Global Fracking Expansion: Ensuring Friendly Legislation
By Carey L. Biron
Fracking fluid and other drilling wastes are dumped into an unlined pit located right up against the Petroleum Highway in Kern County, California. Credit: Sarah Craig/Faces of Fracking
WASHINGTON, Dec 1 2014 (IPS) – Multinational oil and gas companies are engaged in a quiet but broad attempt to prepare the groundwork for a significant global expansion of shale gas development, according to a study released Monday.
Thus far, the hydraulic fracturing (or “fracking”) technologies that have upended the global gas market have been used primarily in North America and, to a lesser extent, Europe. With U.S. gas production in particular having expanded exponentially in recent years, however, countries around the world have started exploration to discern whether they, too, could cash in on this new approach.
According to an estimate published last year by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, some 90 percent of the world’s shale gas could be found outside of the United States – an incredibly lucrative potential. “It’s likely there will be a revolution,” Maria van der Hoeven, the executive director at the Paris-based International Energy Agency, has said.
Yet according to the new study, from Friends of the Earth Europe, a watchdog group, only Brazil has strengthened its regulatory regime in anticipation of this expansion. Of the nearly dozen countries the new report looks at, most are doing the opposite.
“Under pressure from the fossil fuel industry – which has deep pockets and promises employment and investment – several governments have already started to weaken their environmental legislation, alter their tax regimes and put in place industry-friendly mining licensing and production processes, in order to attract foreign investors and expertise,” the report states. “This is often at the expense of the public interest.”
In terms of production this remains a nascent industry. Nonetheless, neither governments nor companies appear to have undertaken efforts to guard against the complexities that will arise, including around the potential for social, environmental and even political tensions.
“The industry is trying to change the legislation in those places where they want to operate, to try to repeat as much as possible the favourable policies we’ve seen in U.S. energy policy,” Antoine Simon, a shale gas campaigner with Friends of the Earth Europe and lead author on the new report, told IPS.
“The key here is to ensure that the legal frameworks are as friendly for the industry as possible. That’s the first phase of this global strategy, and we’re seeing it in each country we studied.”
No safeguards
Outside of North America and Europe, Argentina has moved forward the quickest on shale gas development, and thus offers a key example on legislative action for which companies may be looking.
For instance, Argentina has put in place a new law guaranteeing a minimum price for fracked gas. Further, this minimum price is some 250 percent higher than the previous valuation – a sweetheart guard against the bottomed-out prices that are currently impacting on gas production in the United States.
Simon says this law has a telling nickname in Argentina – the “Chevron Decree”, a reference to the U.S. oil and gas company. The day after the law was passed, he notes, Argentina’s main state-backed oil and gas producer signed a long-term production deal with Chevron.
Other countries have put in place favourable new tax policies for oil and gas investors. In Morocco, for instance, producers will be exempt from corporate taxes for the first decade of operation, while Russia has created similar policies for oil production over the next 15 years.
Yet the lack of action to simultaneously put in place environmental or social safeguards in most countries runs a variety of risks, Friends of the Earth Europe and others warn. Hydraulic fracturing requires massive amounts of water, for instance – up to 26 million litres per drill site.
The new report finds that a significant proportion of shale gas reserves around the world are located in areas that are already experiencing significant water shortages and even related violence. Likewise, many of these shale basins are beneath major cross-border aquifers.
Even before these issues are addressed by national governments, then, the oil and gas industry could gain influence in setting policy on the notoriously contentious issue of freshwater use.
Alongside concerns about the local impact of shale gas development is a broader lack of clarity today on the extent to which developing countries would be able to benefit from any new gas-related revenues. Thus far, only Brazil has specifically addressed this issue.
“In our research, Brazil was the only exception in terms of passing legislation that ensured they would get some significant revenues,” Simon says. “Really that doesn’t seem to be happening in other countries, where instead we’re seeing a lot of legislation that offers state aid to push investors to come to their countries.”
Beyond a few notable exceptions in Latin America and South Africa, Simon suggests that this issue has not yet seen significant opposition by civil society. Still, advocacy groups do point to a growing trend of global understanding and mobilisation on fracking concerns.
“As more and more studies confirm the risks of air pollution, water contamination, increased earthquake activity and climate change impacts from fracking, the more people oppose this destructive and intensive process,” Wenonah Hauter, the executive director of Food & Water Watch, a U.S. watchdog group, told IPS.
“The movement to ban fracking has resulted in hundreds of local communities taking action to stop fracking, several states and countries instituting moratoriums, and the movement continues to grow.”
In October, Food & Water Watch organized an international day of action to ban hydraulic fracturing. Hauter notes that the event featured “over 300 actions in 34 countries, from Australia to Argentina, even Antarctica, calling for a ban on fracking”.
Food & Water Watch reports that France and Bulgaria have already banned hydraulic fracturing, while local moratoriums have also been passed by hundreds of communities across the Netherlands, Spain and Argentina.
U.S. government promotion
Meanwhile, the drivers behind fracking-related pressures are not simply multinational companies and national governments keen on investment. It was in the United States where hydraulic fracturing was invented and proved its potential, and today the U.S. government is reportedly taking a central role in promoting these techniques worldwide.
In almost all of the countries studied for the new report, researchers found the development of shale gas to be “closely linked” to a U.S. government agency, the U.S. Unconventional Gas Technical Engagement Program (UGTEP). Housed within the U.S. State Department, since 2010 the UGTEP has engaged in a wide variety of technical assistance around gas development.
“Governments often have limited capability to assess their own country’s unconventional gas resource potential or are unclear about how to develop it in a safe and environmentally sustainable manner,” UGTEP explains on its website. “The ultimate goals of UGTEP are to achieve greater energy security by supporting the development of environmentally and commercially sustainable frameworks.”
While U.S. diplomats are specifically tasked with strengthening U.S. business prospects abroad, critics say UGTEP’s activities constitute the broad promotion of hydraulic fracturing under the guise of U.S. diplomacy.
“UGTEP uses official government channels and US taxpayers’ money to promote high-volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing worldwide, opening doors for the main global players in the oil and gas industry,” the Friends of the Earth Europe report states.
“Through UGTEP, the US is also actively engaged in re-shaping existing foreign legal regulations to create the desired legal framework for the development of shale oil and gas in the targeted countries.”
Full coverage in The New Republic…
Many of us were involved in anti-apartheid work, especially in the 1980’s and 1990’s. Thirty years ago this Saturday the new flag of national unity first flew over South Africa, and the first elections open to all races brought in a new era for South Africa—as well as a triumph of democracy in which the whole world could rejoice and be heartened. As we face into this crucial election year in the U.S. it’s good to remember the power of the vote and the power of the people.
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