{"id":88567,"date":"2026-06-30T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T06:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.opinionpublica.tv\/portada\/?p=88567"},"modified":"2026-06-29T18:58:20","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T00:58:20","slug":"how-trump-turned-americas-refugee-program-into-a-pathway-for-white-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.opinionpublica.tv\/portada\/how-trump-turned-americas-refugee-program-into-a-pathway-for-white-people\/","title":{"rendered":"How Trump turned America\u2019s refugee program into a pathway for white people"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"How<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Charl Kleinhaus did not like the direction his country was taking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A white South African, Mr. Kleinhaus said the laws meant to empower Black people after the demise of the racist apartheid system had hurt his mining business. Violence in the country \u2014 a scourge affecting everyone, regardless of race \u2014 had become too much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So Mr. Kleinhaus considered his options.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of his fellow Afrikaners, the ethnic minority that ruled during apartheid, had moved to Germany, but the language barrier was not ideal. He thought about Australia, but decided that moving his family thousands of miles from home would be too hard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, in February of last year, Mr. Kleinhaus received what he described as \u201ca message from above.\u201d President Trump had suspended refugee admissions to the United States, but he made an exception for people like Mr. Kleinhaus: white Afrikaners who claim they are victims of racial persecution in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s now a reverse apartheid,\u201d Mr. Kleinhaus said, summing up his grievances about his homeland. \u201cThat\u2019s what we are fighting about now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a matter of months, Mr. Kleinhaus secured refugee status and moved with his family to the United States, completing a process that can take years under normal circumstances. Now, after a year in the country, he has settled in South Dakota, where he has found part-time work at a car dealership, a farm and a brickyard while planning his next business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Kleinhaus is among more than 6,000 South Africans \u2014 the vast majority of them white \u2014 who have benefited from Mr. Trump\u2019s decision to upend America\u2019s refugee program, which for decades had made the United States a sanctuary for people fleeing disaster and persecution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under Mr. Trump, the program has effectively become a whites-only path to life in the United States, a culmination of the president\u2019s longstanding antipathy toward immigrants and his embrace of the concept of \u201creverse racism\u201d as a guiding principle in his administration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The president has fought to limit immigration for more than a decade, imposing travel bans on mostly African and Muslim-majority nations and making it much more difficult for people from those nations to obtain green cards. He has railed against affirmative action, and in an interview with The New York Times earlier this year said he believed civil rights-era protections had resulted in white people being \u201cvery badly treated.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But few of Mr. Trump\u2019s efforts are as striking as his efforts to turn the refugee program on its head, leaving thousands of people across the world sitting in refugee camps with no chance of entry into the United States, even as he created a workaround for Afrikaners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Trump administration has argued that the overhaul of its refugee program is necessary to prioritize refugees who can better assimilate into the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPresident Trump has provided a lifeline for Afrikaners, who are being raped, maimed, killed and driven off their property across South Africa,\u201d Anna Kelly, a White House spokeswoman, said in a statement. \u201cWhile the South African government and many in the media have brushed off the horrific lived experiences of this community, the Trump administration continues to process applications for refugee status because the president has a humanitarian heart.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But critics of the policy who are involved in refugee resettlement say the Trump administration\u2019s priorities have made it impossible to help people who have nowhere else to turn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the moral and legal inversion of what this work is about,\u201d said Jason Marks, a senior refugee officer who resigned from the Department of Homeland Security last year when Mr. Trump announced the effort to fast-track Afrikaners to the United States. \u201cThey are rolling out the red carpet for this group with a clear racial and political agenda at the expense of everyone else.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Too Many People\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Kleinhaus acknowledges that moving to the United States from South Africa\u2019s Mpumalanga Province was not his \u201clast option.\u201d He left behind resources: a Jaguar sports car, a Range Rover and what he estimates is property worth at least $300,000. He plans to sell them all to bring in extra money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But he also says that many of his white relatives and friends were no longer safe in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

White farmers \u2014 a population that Mr. Trump has spotlighted in public remarks \u2014 have indeed been killed in vicious acts of violence in a country that suffers from a high murder rate. But so have Black South Africans and others, and police data does not support the idea that white South Africans are more likely to be targeted than any other group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Kleinhaus also said his profits were suffering because of racial equity laws.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019re not going to get a big contract from a mining company if you\u2019re not Black,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s too many people. How do you divide a small cake between such a big population? Yeah, you cannot.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said he felt no guilt about bringing his children and grandson to America to pursue a new life, even as families fleeing conflict in Afghanistan, Sudan and Ukraine remained walled off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t take in those hard-core war people,\u201d said Mr. Kleinhaus, whose news feed is full of social media videos and memes promoting the idea that white people are targeted in South Africa. \u201cYou can\u2019t put them in a first-world country, you\u2019ll be mad.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After allowing refugees from around the globe to enter the country for decades, the United States was now trying to \u201chave some type of balance,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said this month that U.S. refugee policy must benefit Americans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEverything we do has to be geared by the national interest,\u201d Mr. Rubio told lawmakers this month. He said that \u201cit is in our national interest\u201d to allow in people who can \u201cquickly assimilate into society and be successful.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Representative Grace Meng, Democrat of New York, asked why the administration thought other refugees could not assimilate, including Afghans who had helped U.S. soldiers during the war, cleared vetting and were now stuck in limbo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey have assimilated and contribute and pay taxes,\u201d Ms. Meng said of other Afghan refugees who had moved to her district in Queens, N.Y. \u201cI think it\u2019s important for America to keep our promise as well,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of the Afrikaners, who are the descendants of Dutch and other European settlers, have not acclimated as smoothly as the administration expected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During their initial months in the United States, refugees typically can receive some money for housing and food from resettlement organizations who receive federal funding. Those organizations can also help them find work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But refugees are expected to eventually be self-sufficient. The process is often a difficult one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Multiple Afrikaners reported delays in receiving financial support from their local resettlement agency, according to complaints obtained by The New York Times. (The names of many of the refugees were omitted from the documents.) One of the families complained about needing to complete Medicaid and social security applications on their own. That same family griped about needing to use public transportation, according to the documents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another South African relocated to Texas said he felt staffers from the local resettlement agency, which has a Muslim affiliation, had \u201cdiscriminated\u201d against him as a Christian. The staff members who picked up his parents from the airport were candid about their views of Mr. Trump\u2019s changes to the refugee program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey told my mother they cannot wait for next election when Trump can leave office as they had a problem with his decision to give South Africans refugee status and how angry they are that only South African refugees are now allowed,\u201d according to the correspondence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The newly arrived South African also said his family was placed in an apartment that was \u201cdirty, contained mold, and is located in an unsafe area in Fort Worth.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The complaints by the Afrikaners about their level of assistance also came after the Trump administration made cuts to funding for resettlement agencies and benefits that in the past were made available to new refugees, including food stamps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At least three Afrikaners made the return after being settled in states like Minnesota, Idaho and Illinois, according to government documents. Some had sick relatives back home. One Afrikaner said the process had \u201coccurred quickly\u201d and \u201cshe had not thoroughly thought through the process.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think some of them are finding that actually it\u2019s not an easy life to be a refugee,\u201d said Bryony Fox, a lecturer at South Africa\u2019s Stellenbosch University, who researches forced displacement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Claims of Genocide<\/p>\n\n\n\n

South African officials strongly dispute claims by Mr. Trump that Afrikaners are being targeted in a \u201cgenocide.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During apartheid, which ended in 1994, the government denied Black South Africans the right to own prime agricultural land. That meant that almost all of the country\u2019s large-scale commercial farmers were white, and that remains so to this day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

South Africa\u2019s Commission for Employment Equity found that white people made up 61 percent of top management posts in 2024, while they are only 7.5 percent of the population. Black South Africans are also unemployed at far higher rates than their white peers, a disparity that has not improved over time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To address the disparities, the African National Congress government has instituted racial equity laws that incentivize companies to have Black ownership and leadership. That Black Economic Empowerment initiative has prompted intense scrutiny from the Trump administration, as well as from Afrikaners fleeing to the United States who say it has harmed their businesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Kleinhaus said such policies make him as a white man feel targeted by the South African government. He said that he had struggled to keep thieves off his property and that his relatives had been the victims of violence, although he said getting into the specifics made him too emotional.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his experience, white people are portrayed as \u201cthe problems in the economy\u201d and \u201cthe privileged ones.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no such thing as that,\u201d said Mr. Kleinhaus. \u201cMost whites have lost a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ms. Fox said there was no denying the violence in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat is our biggest problem,\u201d she said. \u201cBut it is not targeted. It is not systematic targeting.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She said criminals had attacked farms because they \u201chave resources that communities are seeking.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Trump has echoed fringe claims about a white genocide in South Africa for years, going back to his first term. Last year, in a stunning confrontation in the Oval Office, Mr. Trump lectured the South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa, about his own country. Mr. Ramaphosa implored Mr. Trump to listen to \u201cthe voices of South Africans.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The State Department does not break down its refugee data by race, but it has allowed in more than 6,600 refugees this fiscal year. All but three were from South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Trump\u2019s aides have defended the program by saying that other racial minorities in majority-Black South Africa are welcome to apply for the refugee program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

South Africa also has minority populations of people of Indian descent, white people of British heritage and mixed-race people \u2014 and a few individuals from those communities have been processed through Mr. Trump\u2019s refugee program. But refugee resettlement officials say nearly all of those who have been accepted are white, and government documents confirm that the administration has prioritized resettling white Afrikaners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why White South Africans?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Long before Mr. Trump created the refugee program, many white South Africans traveled to the United States \u2014 from the Midwest to the Mississippi Delta \u2014 on temporary visas to work as seasonal farmers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since 2019, Kobus Van Den Berg has been traveling to and from the United States to plant soybeans and fertilize fields in North Dakota to save money for his family back home in South Africa. He agrees that crime is an issue in South Africa, but he pushed back on the notion that white South Africans are being singled out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey\u2019ll attack anybody,\u201d he said. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter what color or race you are.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He has watched as Afrikaners have come into the United States in recent months with refugee status and a pathway to citizenship, even as he has spent years navigating a complicated immigration system with the hopes of obtaining a green card.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhy is it so easy for this other Afrikaner from South Africa to come over here?\u201d Mr. Van Den Berg said. \u201cThe thing that blows everyone\u2019s mind today is, why is it specifically white South Africans?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Critics of the Trump administration say the answer lies not just in Mr. Trump\u2019s longstanding embrace of the Afrikaners\u2019 cause, or the administration\u2019s desire for \u201cassimilation,\u201d but in his stance toward refugees more broadly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sharif Aly, the president of the International Refugee Assistance Project, said the policy shows an \u201cindifference to the plight of nonwhite refugees.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is difficult to ascertain how rigorously the administration is vetting the South Africans. In the past, the process has been time-consuming, with agents demanding criminal records, medical records and even social media posts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Trump administration has said it would deny immigration requests for those with antisemitic or \u201canti-American\u201d posts on their social media accounts, but Mr. Kleinhaus was welcomed even though he had made antisemitic comments on social media. In April 2023, the X user @charlkleinhaus wrote in a now-deleted post that Jews were \u201cuntrustworthy\u201d and \u201ca dangerous group\u201d and that \u201cthey are not Gods chosen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Kleinhaus said his grandmother was Jewish, he was not an antisemitic person and he had written the post in error while he was taking medication for a kidney stone. He also shared other posts that had been written by others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During his processing, he said, he signed off on administration vetting of his social media accounts and no one brought up any problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Leaving Everything Behind\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over breakfast at a local diner, the Fryn\u2019 Pan Family Restaurant, Mr. Kleinhaus said he missed some aspects of his life in South Africa, including \u201cthe people, my workers, my friends and family.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But he also appreciates \u201cthese advantages that I\u2019ve got here to do things I can do just as a white person\u201d and not needing to worry about laws requiring him to sell a percentage of equity of his mining company to Black shareholders in South Africa \u201cbecause they were here first or whatever the story can be.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said he was focused on working and contributing to the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said he did not complain when he, his son, daughter and grandson were initially placed in one hotel room in Buffalo, N.Y. He soon identified a farmer in Yankton, S.D., who had hired seasonal workers from South Africa for years and was looking for more help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, his daughter works at a flower shop in the small town of Yankton. His son works at another farm and his grandson has learned English quickly after knowing only Afrikaans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And he has found part-time work at a car dealership and at a brickyard while he plans how to start his next business. He occasionally takes his grandson fishing in this area known for the Lewis and Clark trail on the weekends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI just want my kids to be successful,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Kleinhaus hopes he can convince other relatives to join him soon in America. He said he knows he cannot simply go back and visit, because that would undermine his claims of persecution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m leaving everything behind,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen you accept the refugee thing, it\u2019s not a thing like, I\u2019ll be back in two weeks; I\u2019m going on holiday. It\u2019s nothing like that. You\u2019re saying it\u2019s done. I\u2019m not going back.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n