Feds Plan to Welcome Another 17.5K Afrikaners

For the second year in a row, the administration plans to limit refugee arrivals to a single, specific group. A State Department notice to Congress obtained by CBS News says the Trump administration plans to reserve up to 17,500 refugee slots over the next fiscal year, and they will "primarily" go to white South Africans, a major carve-out in an otherwise sharply restricted resettlement program. In April, government data showed that out of 4,499 refugees admitted in the fiscal year that began in October 2025, all but three were from South Africa.

The administration argues that Afrikaners, the descendants of Dutch, French, and German settlers, face land seizures, discriminatory policies, and targeted violence, a portrayal South Africa's government rejects. Trump has described the situation as a "genocide," a characterization disputed by experts and some Afrikaners interviewed by 60 Minutes, who link farm killings to broader crime. The resettlement plan, projected to cost $500 million, comes alongside new US sanctions on South African officials accused of discriminating against Afrikaners.

• Organizations that work with refugees criticized the decision to limit admissions to white South Africans again, the AP reports. "For more than four decades, America's refugee program has provided a lifesaving pathway for people fleeing violence and persecution," Naomi Steinberg at HIAS said in a statement. "But again, this administration is diminishing and distorting this legacy in service of its political whims. That is why we will never stop speaking out for a return to a program that welcomes refugees from around the world who have been persecuted because of who they are and what they believe."
• By the end of last month, more than 13,000 Afrikaners had arrived in the US, although at least one family has left and been barred from returning, the Times of London reports. They were refused re-entry after the father and one of his young children became ill and the family returned to South Africa, where they had health insurance, to seek medical treatment.