Washington– The Trump administration plans to accept up to 10,000 white South African refugees into the United States in the coming months, arguing that their status as Afrikaners made them vulnerable to discrimination and persecution at home.
The South African government said the Trump administration’s allegations were baseless. But President Donald Trump insisted that the white Afrikaner minority faced systemic discrimination and violence, particularly attacks against their farming communities, prompting his decision. Cutting off aid to South Africaengaged in a A fiery confrontation in the Oval Office with his boss And boycott last year G20 Summit in Johannesburg.
The State Department told Congress on Monday that it would accept up to 17,500 Africans — a group of white South Africans mostly descended from Dutch settlers — as refugees during the fiscal year that ends in September. The administration initially indicated it would only accept up to 7,500 people, mostly Africans, during that time period, but said Monday that “unexpected developments in South Africa have created a refugee emergency.”
The administration’s plans were outlined in a State Department emergency notice sent to Congress on Monday evening and obtained by The Associated Press. CNN first reported the new refugee levels.
Under the law, the administration is required to inform and consult with lawmakers about refugee levels for each fiscal year. Administration officials are scheduled to meet with Congress for the consultation process later this week, according to a congressional aide who was granted anonymity to confirm the private meeting.
The South African government’s rhetoric “across multiple ministries and political parties sought to undermine the US resettlement program and attacked Afrikaners,” the administration said, referring to recent comments by President Cyril Ramaphosa and other South African political figures. As reported by A December incident South African government officials raided a US refugee processing center, which the administration denounced at the time as “unacceptable.”
“This heightened hostility increases the risks for Afrikaners in South Africa, who are already subject to far-reaching government-sponsored racial discrimination,” the Foreign Office said in the notice.
The estimated cost of resettling an additional 10,000 refugees is about $100 million, according to the State Department.
The issue was the subject of a controversial Oval Office meeting between Trump and Ramaphosa last year, during which Trump played a video showing the far-left politician chanting a song with the lyrics “Kill the farmer.” Trump has repeatedly accused South Africa of failing to address the systematic killing of white farmers.
Experts in South Africa said there was no evidence that whites were targeted because of their race, although farmers of all races are victims of violence in South Africa, where the crime rate is high. During the May 2025 meeting. Ramaphosa said “We absolutely oppose” the behavior to which Trump referred, adding, “that is not government policy” and “our government policy is completely inconsistent with what he was saying.”
The Trump administration’s sweeping refugee policy marked a radical departure from that of his predecessors, significantly reducing the number of those who would be accepted. Number 7500 which Management revealed initially Last year saw a historic decline in the number of refugees accepted into the United States since the program began in 1980.