Even as they help make a new home for 59 Afrikaners now in the US, refugee settlement groups say their speedy arrival shows how the federal government could move to bring others here to safety.
Trump welcomes first white South African refugees to US
After suspending the U.S. refugee program, President Trump is making an exception for white South Africans, known as Afrikaners.
- Afrikaners are a White ethnic minority in South Afrika and once ruled over the country during apartheid.
- President Donald Trump says they are facing descrimination and signed an order in February allowing them to enter the United States as refugees.
- On May 12, a group of 59 arrived in the United States and are being resettled across the nation.
- In January, Trump suspended refugee resettlement, a move that is facing a legal challenge.
- Resettlement groups say the arrival of the Afrikaners shows how the federal government can move quickly and hope other refugees now can come to the United States.
Yasmin Aguilar resettled in Boise, Idaho as a refugee from Afghanistan years ago, but the dangers for her relatives worsened over time. Late last year, after years of waiting, her brother and sister were finally on the cusp of joining her.
Then President Donald Trump took office for his second term.
Trump in January suspended the decades-old refugee program. It left their approvals in limbo and their families stuck in Pakistan, unable to work and increasingly fearing deportation to Afghanistan.
This week, her family’s struggles contrasted sharply with the fast-tracked arrival of 59 Afrikaners, members of a White ethnic minority in South Africa that Trump says suffers from racial discrimination. At least nine are now resettling in Idaho.
Aguilar, 54, said people at risk should be able to seek safety, including the South African families moving to Twin Falls, an agricultural town about 120 miles from Boise. But she said other refugees, including Afghans who supported the U.S. war efforts, deserve similar consideration.
Now she’s among the refugee advocates, sponsors and relatives hoping the controversial arrival of Afrikaners brings renewed attention to the plight of tens of thousands of refugees like her siblings who went through years of waiting, vetting and approvals but remain stuck – some in camps and third countries – despite the admission of the Afrikaners.
On May 15, those hopes faced a setback when a federal judge pulled back his order that would have required the Trump administration to admit 12,000 refugees who had arranged travel. Instead he is requiring 160 admissions for those who had travel set for within two weeks of Jan. 20 when Trump took office, with the rest decided on a case-by-case basis.
Aguilar, who bought a larger home with her husband to house her relatives years ago, enduring delays from the pandemic and Trump’s first term refugee restrictions, said she’s ‘trying to be hopeful.”
“I’m glad that people are searching for safety. I don’t have any issue about that,” she said in an interview with USA TODAY. “We have to have a fair system for everyone.”
From Idaho to North Carolina, Afrikaners find new homes
The newly arrived Afrikaners, part of a minority ethnic group who once ruled the country’s system of apartheid that ended in 1994 when Nelson Madela was elected president, flew on May 12 to Washington D.C.’s Dulles airport.
Most did not speak to reporters, but Will Hartzenberg, a 44-year-old farmer, told The Atlantic that his family was headed to Idaho, where farms and mountains reminded him of home. He said his parents and sister had been shot during an attack on the family farm in 1993.
Trump this week said “a genocide” was taking place and that “White farmers are being brutally killed.” He also cited South Africa’s Expropriation Act governing the acquisition of private land for the “public interest.” Disparities in land ownership continue decades after apartheid ended.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has disputed Trump’s claims. And the group Genocide Watch has noted that while South Africa’s population is 8% White, White residents make up just 2% of its murder victims.
Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau greeted the arrivals at Dulles and said he respected “what you had to deal with” and “the long tradition of your people,” in reference to the Afrikaner ethnic group.
“Welcome to the United States of America,” Landau told them. “It is such an honor for us to receive you here today.”
The move brought swift criticisms. Refugees typically must first be designated by the United Nations. Most wait years for interviews and vetting before a small fraction are resettled to third countries. The Afrikaners were approved following a Trump order in February.
The Episcopal Church decided May 12 it would no longer work with refugees for the federal government after it was asked to help settle the Afrikaners.
“It has been painful to watch one group of refugees, selected in a highly unusual manner, receive preferential treatment over many others who have been waiting in refugee camps or dangerous conditions for years,” Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe said in a letter.
Other agencies that do similar work were busy this week helping some of the families resettle in communities across the country.
They will receive the same services that would be available to any new refugee arrival, including case management, employment services, housing assistance and limited financial assistance, according to the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants.
In North Carolina, Marc Wyatt, head of the group Welcome House Raleigh Ministries, told USA TODAY his group was helping furnish apartments for several Afrikaner families. While the group’s designation as refugees was “quite controversial,” he said his Christian faith teaches him to welcome any stranger.
In Alabama, Errol Langton 48, a former vegetable farmer, told the New York Times he’d faced threats and suffered financially because of antipathy toward Afrikaners. He already had a brother in Birmingham, Alabama, where he has resettled.
In New York, Charl Kleinhaus, 46, told the BBC he wanted to ensure his children would be safe after getting threats about his land. He remarked about how quickly he got to the country.
Along with the larger freeze, the Department of Homeland Security said recently it would end Temporary Protected Status for Afghans in July, arguing there was an improved security and economic situation. That’s something Afghans such as Aguilar dispute.
“I mean, I feel sorry for the Afghans that they can’t get here. But I know there’s a process there,” Kleinhaus said. “And I know when and if you are approved for the process, they take care of you.”
Eskinder Negash, president of the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, a resettlement group, said in a statement he hoped the admissions would spark a reopening for other refugees. So far, however, there were few signs of it apart from plans to bring in more South Africans.
“We are hopeful that the arrival of this group of refugees indicates the government’s intention to restart the U.S. refugee program and help other refugees in need of resettlement services,” he said.
Refugee supporters seek to loosen restrictions
In Twin Falls, nine people, who are part of two families, were preparing to start new lives, said Holly Beech, a spokesperson for the Idaho Office for Refugees.
Over the last decade, the state resettled about 800 refugees a year, an average taking into account Trump’s first term restrictions, the pandemic, the fall of Kabul and the war in Ukraine.
A Twin Falls resettlement agency holds an annual picnic where refugees cook food as a thank you to the community, she said. Elsewhere, there is also support for refugees, who are highly vetted in contrast to those who cross the southern border to seek asylum.
That’s how Joe Mitchell, a retiree who has helped sponsor Afghan refugees in his town of Idaho Falls, sees it.
“Even though Idaho is a red state and Idaho Falls is even redder, our community has been outstanding as a welcoming community,” Mitchell said.
He and his wife, Kim Mitchell, said the Afghans they sponsored through the Welcome Corps, since canceled by the Trump administration, attend community college and are all working and supporting themselves. But two men’s wives, one with a child, are still seeking to be reunited through a family reunification program. One hasn’t yet met his child, who was born after he fled.
“Why doesn’t my dad come? Doesn’t he love me?” Kim Mitchell said the child asks her mother often.
Since the Jan. 20 pause, in which Trump’s executive order cited the inability “to absorb large numbers of migrants, and in particular, refugees, into its communities in a manner that does not compromise the availability of resources for Americans” and other issues, only a handful of refugees have been able to resettle in Idaho, officials said.
Danilo Zak, director of policy for resettlement agency Church World Service, said there are more than 100,000 people in the U.S. refugee pipeline who are now stranded, including 22,000 who had completed all their medical and security screenings and 12,000 who had travel booked.
After Trump halted the refugee program, freezing funding for processing and resettlement aid, a group of refugees and resettlement agencies filed a federal lawsuit challenging shutdown.
On May 15, a federal judge revamped his earlier order that the U.S. resettle the 12,000 after an appeals court clarification. This led the judge to require the resettlement of just those who had travel arranged for the two weeks following the shutdown. Eligibility for others would be examined on a case-by-case basis. How that will work is still being determined.
Trump’s executive order pausing the program required a report from the secretaries of state and homeland security every 90 days, “until I determine that resumption of the USRAP is in the interests of the United States.” No 90-day report has yet been released, said Melissa Keaney, supervising attorney for the International Refugee Assistance Project.
USA TODAY reached out to the State Department for comment on whether it would expand refugee admissions.
Keany said she hoped the Afrikaner resettlements would illustrate that it would not be burdensome to restart resettlement. Presidents, however, have wide leeway in setting refugee resettlement targets.
“It clearly shows the government can provide a fast and efficient process,” she said.