The Trump administration’s move to prioritize the resettlement of white South African refugees in the United States even as it has turned away refugees from countries including Afghanistan and Haiti has sparked allegations of hypocrisy and a double standard, as well as questions about who is footing the bill for the new arrivals.
On Monday, the State Department said it had welcomed 59 Afrikaners whose applications to come to the U.S. were fast-tracked under President Donald Trump’s executive order issued in February titled, “Addressing Egregious Actions of the Republic of South Africa.” The order called on the administration to “prioritize humanitarian relief, including admission and resettlement” for Afrikaners, a South African minority group descended primarily from Dutch settlers, “who are victims of unjust racial discrimination.”
State Department Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau, the second-highest-ranking U.S. diplomat, was on hand to greet the new arrivals’ charter flight, and department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce signaled in a statement that additional Afrikaners will soon follow in their footsteps.
“In the coming months, we will continue to welcome more Afrikaner refugees and help them rebuild their lives in our great country,” she said.
Newly arrived South Africans listen to U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau and Homeland Security Deputy Secretary Troy Edgar deliver welcome statements near Washington Dulles International Airport, May 12, 2025 in Dulles, Virginia.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
However, the State Department has dodged questions about how that travel is being funded.
Typically, when a refugee who is resettled in the U.S. cannot afford the cost of travel, the State Department provides the refugee with an interest-free, repayable loan to fund the travel, which is administered through the International Organization for Migration, a United Nations agency. Refugees also sign a promissory note guaranteeing they will repay the loan before they depart their country of origin.
But the International Organization for Migration told ABC News it was not involved in administering loans for any of the 59 people who arrived at Washington Dulles International Airport this week, and the Trump administration has repeatedly declined to say whether they paid their own way.
“State Department’s Migration and Refugee Assistance account funds a variety of programs and activities aimed at providing humanitarian assistance to refugees, displaced persons and other vulnerable populations,” a State Department official told ABC News when pressed about the costs.
“This includes activities related to resettling refugees in the United States, such as processing and their initial placement,” the official added.
Some of the first group of white South Africans granted refugee status hold U.S. flags as they attend a meet and greet event, at Dulles International Airport, in Dulles, Virginia, May 12, 2025.
Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images
For decades, the State Department has defended its longstanding policy of making refugees fund their own way to the U.S., arguing it ensures each person assumes responsibility for his or her own success in a new country and that it helps establish credit history.
Critics of the Trump administration’s policy say it is not the only way white South African refugees have received preferential treatment.
On the same day the 59 Afrikaners landed in the Washington, D.C., area, the Department of Homeland Security announced it would terminate temporary protected status, or TPS, for Afghans already in the U.S. — revoking deportation protections issued by the Biden administration in 2021 after the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan.
“We’ve reviewed the conditions in Afghanistan with our interagency partners, and they do not meet the requirements for a TPS designation,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said. “Afghanistan has had an improved security situation, and its stabilizing economy no longer prevent them from returning to their home country.”
The Trump administration has also moved to rescind TPS designations for Haiti, Venezuela and Cameroon. Additionally, refugee admissions from other countries have dropped drastically, and financial support for resettlement agencies has also undergone drastic cuts.
Meanwhile, there are doubts about the severity of the security situation that prompted the president to expedite the resettlement of Afrikaners.
Trump’s executive order directly mentioned a controversial South African land seizure law enacted in early 2025 that allowed the country’s government to take land without offering the owners compensation where it is “just and equitable and in the public interest” to do so.
But so far, the South African government has said no land has been seized under the law.
On Monday, Trump also spoke of violent attacks against Afrikaners.
“It’s a genocide that’s taking place,” the president said. “Farmers are being killed. They happen to be white. But whether they are white or Black makes no difference to me. But white farmers are being brutally killed, and their land is being confiscated in South Africa.”
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa speaks as he attends a panel at the Africa CEO Forum in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, May 12, 2025.
Luc Gnago/Reuters
Following South Africa’s apartheid era, white and Black landowners have been the target of violent farm attacks. The South African government said the primary motive for the attacks is robbery, but white nationalist groups and others have claimed they are racially motivated.
Trump has been a critic of the South African government’s handling of the situation for years, and in 2018, he posted that he asked that then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo “closely study the South Africa land and farm seizures and expropriations and the large scale killing of farmers.”
Elon Musk, a South African native and a top adviser to the president during his second term, has also been vocal about the plight of South African landowners, amplifying claims of “white genocide.”
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has denied any persecution.
“A refugee is someone who has to leave their country out of fear of political persecution, religious persecution or economic persecution,” Ramaphosa said on Monday. “They don’t fit that bill.”
Some groups in the U.S. that frequently work with the government to resettle refugees have also pushed back on the Trump administration’s prioritization of Afrikaners, with at least one, the Episcopal Migration Ministries, saying it won’t play a part in resettling them.
“In light of our church’s steadfast commitment to racial justice and reconciliation and our historic ties with the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, we are not able to take this step,” Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe said in a statement.
ABC’s Armando Torres-García, Luke Barr and Ely Brown contributed to this report.
