As President Donald Trump tries to bar almost all refugees from entering the country, his administration is planning to use federal funds reserved for sick, elderly, and at-risk refugee populations to facilitate an influx of white South Africans within days, according to a government source and an internal memo viewed by the Lever.
The first group of Dutch-descended Afrikaners is scheduled to arrive in the United States imminently, and they will be receiving emergency support from the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement, a division of the Department of Health and Human Services, according to the memo, which was signed by Health and Human Services secretary Robert F. Kennedy and Office of Refugee Resettlement assistant secretary Andrew Gradison.
The move follows Trump’s February executive order demanding humanitarian relief for Afrikaners. Trump booster Elon Musk — himself a South African immigrant — has said South Africa’s government was unfair and racist to white people.
Since the executive order, US officials have been interviewing white South African applicants who claim to have faced racial discrimination in postapartheid South Africa. At the same time, refugees from the rest of the world, some of whom have been waiting for years to enter the country, have been left in limbo after Trump in January suspended the US Refugee Admissions Program, affecting an estimated 20,000 refugees set to travel to the United States — including 12,000 who already had flights booked. That ban is currently being challenged in court.
In the April 30 memo, which has not previously been reported, officials with the Office of Refugee Resettlement wrote to Kennedy, requesting approval for the “mobilization of immediate support for vulnerable incoming Afrikaner refugees,” including “housing, health services, and resettlement support upon their arrival.”
The group of Afrikaners, officials wrote, was slated to arrive “within a…
Auteur: Katya Schwenk
