White South Africans: Refugees of Convenience

I worked on refugee policy under Trump. Now, even the lies aren't subtle.

During the first Trump administration, I worked on the refugee portfolio. I also covered Africa as Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Advisor to Vice President Mike Pence. I met with the NGOs, the faith groups, and the resettlement agencies doing the work on the ground. I fought alongside them, sometimes quietly, sometimes not, against Stephen Miller's full-blown war on refugees. I watched as good people inside the government tried to hold the line, knowing full well we were up against one of the most vicious and ideological assaults on humanitarian policy in U.S. history. That was the first time, back when they still pretended it wasn't all about race.

What is happening right now with the expedited refugee admission of white South Africans is a betrayal of the entire international refugee system. It is a clear, racist signal to the far-right, here and abroad, that this second Trump term will bend U.S. policy to fit their conspiracies and white grievance narratives.

In February, Trump signed an executive order fast-tracking refugee status for white South Africans, particularly Afrikaners, citing "egregious actions" by South Africa's government, a constitutional democracy still reckoning with apartheid's legacy. The order came without credible evidence of persecution. It echoed the "white genocide" conspiracy theory that Trump embraced during his first term after Tucker Carlson amplified it. I know this firsthand. I was in the room, briefing then Vice President Pence with facts to counter the hysteria. 

Yesterday, 59 Afrikaner "refugees" arrived in the United States.

Let's pause there. During Trump's first term, one of Stephen Miller's earliest actions was attempting to halt all refugee admissions. While unsuccessful initially, the refugee ceiling was slashed to historic lows—from 18,000 to eventually 12,000—numbers we never even reached as the system collapsed under deliberate sabotage. Genuine refugees were abandoned, allies stranded, and faith-based resettlement partners left unable to operate.

So what happened to caring about persecuted Christians? That was all performative. It was never really about protecting Christians abroad. If it were, Trump would’ve prioritized Yazidis, or Pakistani Christians, or Christian converts fleeing Iran, people I personally helped track and support in the refugee system. But no. That’s not what’s happened here. Let’s be honest. They’re not the right color. They never were. It was always about race, politics, and power.

And now, suddenly, we’re told that this same underfunded, overwhelmed system can somehow vet and process a group of white South Africans in a matter of weeks? While Afghan SIV applicants who risked their lives to protect U.S. troops are still waiting years and now, even worse, not coming here at all? This isn’t just offensive. It’s dangerous. It sends a message to the world that loyalty means nothing and whiteness means everything.

These nonprofits taking a stand now, like the Episcopal Church, which just severed its partnership with the U.S. government in protest, are doing what so many others should be doing. They're speaking the truth. They're refusing to let their faith be hijacked by a white nationalist agenda masquerading as Christian concern.

Let’s talk about that agenda. Because it’s not subtle. Elon Musk has tweeted repeatedly about “white genocide” in South Africa. Far-right influencers have amplified hoaxes about farmers being slaughtered for their skin color. And the Trump administration, once again, is governing based on memes and fringe conspiracies instead of facts or law.

The Trump administration's decision to grant refugee status to white South Africans aligns directly with narratives pushed by far-right actors and ethno-nationalist groups. AfriForum, a South African Afrikaner rights group described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as "white supremacists in suits and ties," has lobbied U.S. officials since the first Trump term, portraying Afrikaners as victims of racial persecution. Elon Musk has amplified these narratives through his massive platform, claiming white South Africans face genocide. Their strategy is working; U.S. refugee policy now fast-tracks individuals from one of South Africa's most economically privileged demographics while actual refugees remain stranded. More than 600,000 people were in the pipeline, waiting to be reviewed and considered for admission to the United States as refugees when the program was suspended by Trump in January. There are ongoing lawsuits regarding this action, but somehow the Afrikaners get to skip the line.

This policy shift coincides with Musk's personal feud with South Africa over Starlink. Despite claiming on X that Starlink was "not allowed to operate in South Africa simply because I'm not Black," South African regulators revealed Musk had never even applied for a license. This grievance campaign, combined with Trump's "white farmer genocide" rhetoric, has created a perfect storm: refugee policy weaponized as retaliation against a Black-led government seen as politically uncooperative.

So is this truly about a humanitarian emergency? Or is it about rewarding allies, stoking white grievance, and punishing Black-led governments that won’t play along when you try to bully them for your pet project?

Globally, the refugee system is grounded in international law. You must prove a well-founded fear of persecution based on race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group, standards rooted in the 1951 Refugee Convention and implemented through rigorous multi-agency vetting procedures in the U.S. South Africa is not Syria. Afrikaners are not being ethnically cleansed. They are among the most economically and politically advantaged populations in their country. What we’re seeing here is not refugee policy. It’s apartheid revisionism dressed up in humanitarian language.

And it fits perfectly within the blueprint of Project 2025, the radical roadmap being implemented during Trump’s second term. That plan explicitly calls for gutting refugee admissions, “rightsizing” the system by indefinitely reducing intakes, reallocating refugee infrastructure to border enforcement, and reshuffling refugee authority into DHS. It’s designed to criminalize refuge, delegitimize asylum, and transform resettlement into an arm of border policing, not a humanitarian endeavor.

The South African refugee farce is just one piece of a larger strategy. To fully implement this vision, Trump is installing the architects of his first term's refugee dismantling in key positions. Andrew Veprek, who played a pivotal role in the Trump administration's efforts to dismantle refugee protections, has now been nominated to lead the very office he once worked to undermine. During Trump’s first term, Veprek served as Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM) at the State Department. He was instrumental in executing Stephen Miller's vision. His internal communications were widely criticized for aligning humanitarian policy with a nationalist agenda, raising significant concerns among career State Department officials, concerns I also raised with many others inside and outside the system. This isn't merely a personnel decision; it's the final piece ensuring that refugee protection machinery is controlled by those who previously sought to dismantle it.

The selective, politically motivated admittance of Afrikaners as “refugees,” a group that is believed not to be facing systemic persecution, is not just a policy contradiction. It’s a planned, strategic ideological realignment of what “refugee” means under this far-right agenda.

We fought to keep the ceiling at 12,000 during the first term because we knew we were barely functioning and somehow kept it from dropping to zero. We fought daily to protect whatever remained of our humanitarian commitments, watching Miller methodically poison the process.

They're no longer hiding it. 

In Trump's second term, the facade has dropped entirely. The South African "refugee" program reveals the true agenda in stark relief. We owe our Afghan allies more. We owe our partners in the faith community more. And we owe ourselves a country that doesn't turn refugee protection into a tool for racist propaganda and political vendettas. 

This transcends immigration policy. It strikes at the heart of American values, revealing how quickly truth can erode, how easily humanitarian systems can be corrupted, and how insidiously fascism can disguise itself as "protecting the persecuted." The world sees this charade for what it is, and so must we.

-Olivia