A group of white South Africans will arrive in Washington, DC, on Monday through a state department loaded plane to be rested in the US as refugees, a familiar source said with his arrival at NBC News.
Their resettlement occurs, even if President Donald Trump suspected the State Department’s refugee admission program through an executive order on the first day of his second term.
The group’s scheduled arrival as the first south -Fricans to enter the US as refugees was reported for the first time by the New York Times on Friday.
Trump, on January 20, signed an order that said the US “lacks the ability to absorb a large number of migrants and, in particular, refugees, in their communities in a way that does not compromise the availability of resources for Americans, which protect their safety and this ensures proper refugee assimilation.
But after a public dispute with South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa, a few weeks later, on the signing of a land seizure law, Trump issued a second executive order, eliminating aid to South Africa and giving an exception to “Afrikane refugees that escape the government -sponsored racial discrimination, including racial property discistomentation DISCISCISCATION ”” ”
Trump’s counselor Elon Musk, born and raised in South Africa, described the country as “racist property laws,” accusing his government not to stop what he called “genocide” against white farmers.
The South -African government has expressed its concerns to the Trump government regarding the refugee status granted to its citizens on a Friday phone between South Africa Vice -Minister Alvin Botes and US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau.
According to a southern -so -called call from the call, Botes has contested the Trump government’s position that the southern white Africans are refugees, adding that “allegations of discrimination are unfounded.”
According to the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 protocol, a refugee is defined as someone with a “well -grounded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, association with a specific social group or political opinion.”
The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for commentary on how the southern White Affricans fit the definition of the convention, or why this group received priority on requests from other groups that fled persecution in countries such as Sudan, the Republic of Congo or Myanmar.
Chrispin Phiri, a gate of the Ministry of International Relations and Cooperation, said in a statement on Friday: “It is more unfortunate that the resettlement of southern -Africans to the United States, under the suggestion of ‘refugees’, which is a little helpless that the constitutional democracy of South Africa and the country’s democracy, which is a little more motivated and projected to question the constitutional democracy of South Africa;
On Friday, the White House Cabinet Vice -chief and internal security consultant Stephen Miller defended the resettlement of Africanderes, even when refugees from other countries were barred from the USA
“What is happening in South Africa fits the definition of textbooks for why the refugee program was created,” Miller said. “This is race -based persecution. The refugee program is not intended for a solution to global poverty and historically was used in this way.”
Shawn Vandiver, president of Affhanevac, a San Diego-based coalition that helps Afghan to evacuate and redefind themselves in the US, said the Trump government does not reach “pick-pick that victims deserve security.”
“If Stephen Miller suddenly supports refugees’ resettlement when it fits a political narrative, that’s okay – but let’s not pretend that Afghan allies do not meet the same legal definition,” Vandiver told NBC News. “Race-based persecution is real in many places-but religious, political and gender-based violence. This is exactly what Afghans are running away.”
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