White South Africans make up around 7% of the country’s population. But they still own some 78% of private farmland in South Africa and have about 20 times the wealth of Black South Africans.<\/p>\n
One of the executive orders signed by Donald Trump since becoming president allows Afrikaners to resettle in the USImage:\u00a0JIM WATSON\/POOL\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/small><\/p>\n
The first white South Africans granted refugee status under a program initiated by\u00a0US President Donald Trump\u00a0departed from Johannesburg on Sunday.<\/p>\n
A reporter for news agency Reuters described seeing a queue of white citizens with airport trolleys full of luggage waiting to have their passports stamped before they entered the departure lounge.<\/p>\n
The US-funded charter plane held 49 passengers, according to a South African Transport Ministry\u00a0spokesperson Collen Msibi.<\/p>\n
“The application for the permit [to land] said it’s the Afrikaners who are relocating to the USA as refugees,” Msibi said.<\/p>\n
Afrikaners are a white ethnic minority, largely descended from Dutch, German and French settlers. Afrikaner leaders ruled\u00a0South Africa\u00a0during the brutal\u00a0apartheid\u00a0regime of racial segregation that often saw the violent repression of Black South Africans.<\/p>\n
Afrikaners make up nearly 60% of South Africa’s white population.<\/p>\n
Msibi added that the plane was scheduled to fly to Dulles Airport outside Washington and then on to Texas.<\/p>\n
US broadcaster\u00a0NPR reported earlier in the week that 12 states that had agreed to take in the Afrikaners, some of whom have family in the US.<\/p>\n
Why has Trump offered asylum to white South Africans?<\/p>\n
Trump, along with his South African-born advisor and Tesla CEO\u00a0Elon Musk, have been vocal about what they claim is persecution of white South Africans by the country’s Black majority.<\/p>\n
This is despite Afrikaners remaining one of the most privileged races in South Africa since apartheid ended 30 years ago.<\/p>\n
White South Africans\u00a0make up around 7% of the country’s population. But they still own some 78% of private farmland in South Africa and have about 20 times the wealth of Black South Africans.<\/p>\n
Trump signed an executive order in early February that offers resettlement to “Afrikaner refugees” who face “government-sponsored race-based discrimination, including racially discriminatory\u00a0property confiscation.”<\/p>\n
This is a reference to a\u00a0South African land expropriation law\u00a0that Trump believes will lead to the confiscation of white-owned farms.<\/p>\n
South Africa’s new law is supposed to redress inequalities entrenched under the former apartheid system.<\/p>\n
How many Afrikaners are migrating to the US?<\/strong><\/p>\n In March, the US State Department said it had received some 8,000 inquires by white South Africans for resettlement.<\/p>\n As many as 1,000 Afrikaners could be admitted to the\u00a0United States\u00a0this year, the Trump administration said.<\/p>\n South African\u00a0Transport Ministry spokesperson Msibi said his department hadn’t received any other application for further resettlement flights.<\/p>\n The rapid pathway for resettlement offered to Afrikaners is in stark\u00a0contrast to the normal refugee process, which can take years.<\/p>\n The Trump administration has also stopped virtually all other refugee admissions\u00a0under an\u00a0executive order\u00a0signed by Trump as one of his first acts as president.<\/p>\n Kate Hairsine with Reuters, AFP, AP<\/em><\/p>\n Edited by: Zac Crellin<\/em><\/p>\n White South Africans make up around 7% of the country’s population. But they still own…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":205,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,13,7,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-africa","category-economy","category-international","category-politics"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/eandelmagazine.com\/eandelmagazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/south-africans-leave-for-US.jpg",735,450,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/eandelmagazine.com\/eandelmagazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/south-africans-leave-for-US-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/eandelmagazine.com\/eandelmagazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/south-africans-leave-for-US-300x184.jpg",300,184,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/eandelmagazine.com\/eandelmagazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/south-africans-leave-for-US.jpg",640,392,false],"large":["https:\/\/eandelmagazine.com\/eandelmagazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/south-africans-leave-for-US.jpg",640,392,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/eandelmagazine.com\/eandelmagazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/south-africans-leave-for-US.jpg",735,450,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/eandelmagazine.com\/eandelmagazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/south-africans-leave-for-US.jpg",735,450,false],"wpucv-grid-three":["https:\/\/eandelmagazine.com\/eandelmagazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/south-africans-leave-for-US.jpg",360,220,false],"wpucv-grid-two":["https:\/\/eandelmagazine.com\/eandelmagazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/south-africans-leave-for-US.jpg",600,367,false],"wpucv-grid-one":["https:\/\/eandelmagazine.com\/eandelmagazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/south-africans-leave-for-US.jpg",735,450,false],"wpucv-classic":["https:\/\/eandelmagazine.com\/eandelmagazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/south-africans-leave-for-US.jpg",278,170,false],"wpucv-classic-small":["https:\/\/eandelmagazine.com\/eandelmagazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/south-africans-leave-for-US.jpg",150,92,false],"wpucv-galary":["https:\/\/eandelmagazine.com\/eandelmagazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/south-africans-leave-for-US.jpg",400,245,false],"covernews-slider-full":["https:\/\/eandelmagazine.com\/eandelmagazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/south-africans-leave-for-US.jpg",735,450,false],"covernews-slider-center":["https:\/\/eandelmagazine.com\/eandelmagazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/south-africans-leave-for-US.jpg",735,450,false],"covernews-featured":["https:\/\/eandelmagazine.com\/eandelmagazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/south-africans-leave-for-US.jpg",735,450,false],"covernews-medium":["https:\/\/eandelmagazine.com\/eandelmagazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/south-africans-leave-for-US-540x340.jpg",540,340,true],"covernews-medium-square":["https:\/\/eandelmagazine.com\/eandelmagazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/south-africans-leave-for-US-400x250.jpg",400,250,true]},"author_info":{"info":["vicrollion"]},"category_info":"Africa<\/a> Economy<\/a> International<\/a> Politics<\/a>","tag_info":"Politics","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eandelmagazine.com\/eandelmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eandelmagazine.com\/eandelmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eandelmagazine.com\/eandelmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eandelmagazine.com\/eandelmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eandelmagazine.com\/eandelmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eandelmagazine.com\/eandelmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":204,"href":"https:\/\/eandelmagazine.com\/eandelmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203\/revisions\/204"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eandelmagazine.com\/eandelmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eandelmagazine.com\/eandelmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eandelmagazine.com\/eandelmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eandelmagazine.com\/eandelmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}