Trump Expands Protections For South African Refugees

The White House raised the annual refugee admission cap by 10,000 as the Trump administration continues to prioritize the resettlement of white Afrikaners fleeing persecution from South Africa.

A presidential determination signed May 21 cited “an unforeseen emergency refugee situation” caused by “the incitement of racially motivated violence on the part of the government of South Africa and leaders of prominent political parties” against white Afrikaners as his justification for the change.

The directive raises annual refugee admissions to roughly 17,500 people.

Afrikaners, a minority in South Africa, are largely descended from Dutch and French settlers.

The document, published in the Federal Register, also cited “new disruptions of United States Refugee Admissions Program operations in South Africa” as a need for the increase.

The Daily Wire recently spoke with several Afrikaners approved for the refugee resettlement whose flights to the United States were canceled after they had already received travel documents and airline tickets.

The Afrikaners placed much of the blame on the left-leaning nonprofit group Church World Service (CWS), which is contracted to assist refugees during their application and resettlement process. CWS has taken the Trump administration to court to challenge its “discriminatory preference for white Afrikaners.”

Despite the ongoing litigation, CWS still plays a role in processing Afrikaner refugee cases through its Resettlement Support Center Africa program.

One Afrikaner woman told The Daily Wire she applied for refugee status in May 2025 and received her airline tickets in January, only to be notified by CWS that her trip had been canceled days before her scheduled departure.

She remains stuck in South Africa after quitting her full-time job and selling off her belongings.

“It’s like giving a child some candy and just before they put it in their mouth, they take it back. It was terrifying,” she said.

After returning to office, Trump moved to reduce overall refugee admissions, lowering the cap from 125,000 to 7,500 annually.

All but three of the 6,069 refugees resettled in the United States since October were Afrikaners, according to The Washington Post.

Trump himself has said that Afrikaners are victims of a racial genocide in South Africa.

He also confronted South African President Cyril Ramaphosa last year after he denied the existence of a genocide in his country.

During the interaction, Trump played footage of South African politician Julius Malema singing “Kill the Boer” during a political rally, a chant critics say incites violence against Afrikaners.