First on Fox: According to the State Department, the United States will welcome 49 victims of "government-sponsored racial discrimination" who have been victimized by white South African refugees in their homelands.
Chartered U.S. flights landed at Dulles Airport in Virginia on Monday afternoon, when Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau welcomed the Afrikaans.
"In the face of undeniable government-funded racial discrimination in South Africa, the first Africa refugees have arrived in the United States," a senior State Department official said in an exclusive statement on Fox News' digital numbers.
“The U.S. refugee enrollment program is designed to be used in such situations. Under President Trump’s strong leadership, the State Department has helped provide new lives for these refugees in the United States, where they will live in freedom, security and opportunity.”
Trump uses white Afrikaners as refugees from South Africa after requisition legislation
Katia Beeden, a life coach and campaigner for white South Africans who wish to apply for U.S. refugee status, was in a photo pose at Fish Hoek's residence in Cape Town, South Africa on April 8, 2025. (Reuters/SHAFIEK TASSIEM/File Photo)
President Donald Trump first initiated the resettlement for the first time through an executive order entitled “Serious Actions against the Republic of South Africa”, directing the State Department to knock the Afrikaans into the front of the line for resettlement.
South Africans are now able to submit a statement of interest to the U.S. Embassy in Pretoria that will review documents and contact those eligible for the interview process.
Trump has effectively stopped refugee programs for war and famine countries such as Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. White South Africans say they were denied work due to race and targeted violence.
Trump's executive order is a response to a law passed by the South African government that allows it to use private land for public use, sometimes without compensation. Trump claims the law will be used to target the white Afrikaners group in South Africa, which comes from the Netherlands and other European settlers who arrived more than 300 years ago.
Trump, South Africa is growing in competitive land law, deals between state and American enemies
White South Africans support President Donald Trump, South African and American tech billionaire Elon Musk gathered in front of Pretoria on February 15, 2025 at the U.S. Embassy for demonstrations. (Marco Longori/AFP via Getty Images)
The South African Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that whites in South Africa face "unfounded" of "full fear of persecution."
“It is regrettable that with the unity of “refugees”, the resettlement of South Africans was entirely politically motivated to question South Africa’s constitutional democracy; in fact, the country has indeed suffered real persecution under the rule of racial discrimination, and has been discriminated in a desperate effort, internationally and multinational corporations for a family.
The arrival of the Afrikaans came when Trump tried to back down on racial politics in South Africa, and adviser Elon Musk grew up during apartheid.
Donald Trump and the South African president are locked in a land acquisition law in Washington, D.C. that will lead to the takeover of white-owned farms. (Marco Longori/AFP via Getty Images)
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Afrikaan families heading to the United States mainly come from agricultural communities.
Since the end of apartheid in the 1990s, South Africa has been seeking to make up for the segregation policy, including the land redistribution law signed in January. The policy was proposed after an audit in 2017, which found that white South Africans owned three-quarters of individually owned farm and agricultural property, while also accounting for 7% of the population. In the age of apartheid, black South Africans were deprived of their right to own major agricultural land.