Thousands of white South African Afrikaners could be calling the U.S. home by the end of summer 2025.
Breitbart reported that a staggering number of these ethnic minority refugees, fleeing political and racial violence in South Africa, are poised to arrive under a Trump administration plan to ramp up their intake to hundreds, if not thousands, in the coming months.
This story starts with a small but significant step: a group of 59 Afrikaners landed in Washington, D.C., last month, marking the first wave of arrivals.
Officially welcomed by the State Department on May 12, 2025, these few dozen pioneers are just the tip of the iceberg. Their claims of persecution have been validated, according to a U.S. official, painting a grim picture of life back home.
Speaking of grim, a State Department official noted, “People have suffered attacks on their farms that were racially motivated.” If that’s not a wake-up call about the violence driving this exodus, what is?
Meanwhile, the backlog of applications for refugee status from Afrikaners stands at over 50,000, a number that will “continue to rise,” per the same official. The scale of desperation here is hard to ignore, even if some would rather look the other way.
The Trump administration isn’t sitting idle, with plans to “massively scale this up” in the second half of summer, as a State Department official put it.
We’re not talking small numbers anymore, but “hundreds and perhaps thousands” of new arrivals.
President Trump himself weighed in, telling reporters at the White House, “It’s a genocide that’s taking place that you people don’t want to write about.” While the term is heavy, his frustration with media silence on farm attacks and land seizures is palpable—and frankly, not unwarranted.
Trump added, “They happen to be white, but whether they’re white or black makes no difference to me.” It’s a fair point: suffering shouldn’t have a color filter, though he’s right to note the double standard in coverage with, “If it were the other way around, they’d talk about it.”
On the other side of the ocean, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has a different take, claiming these refugees are leaving because “they don’t want to embrace the changes” in his country. Call it what you will, but dismissing genuine fear as mere stubbornness feels like a convenient sidestep.
Ramaphosa went further, labeling the Afrikaners “cowardly” for “running away.” If facing violence means staying brave, one wonders what kind of courage he’s peddling.
He also defended chants like “Kill the Boer” as “freedom of expression.” While free speech is sacred, justifying rhetoric that sounds like a direct threat raises eyebrows—turns out, words can cut deeper than policy papers.
Back to Trump’s critique, he pointed out, “White farmers are being brutally killed, and their land is being confiscated.” It’s a stark image, and the lack of mainstream outrage does beg the question of selective empathy in today’s hyper-politicized media landscape.
The numbers alone—50,000-plus applications and counting—suggest this isn’t just a political football but a humanitarian issue demanding attention. The Trump administration’s push to welcome more Afrikaners could be a lifeline, even if it ruffles feathers among those obsessed with progressive optics over practical solutions.