How many Afrikaners will be approved for refugee status in the US?

31 Mar 2025

A new report by the New York Times suggests that only 100 Afrikaner farmers have been earmarked for potential approval for refugee status so far.

What do we know about the project to resettle white Afrikaners in the US as refugees?

Very little so far.

US President Donald Trump signed an executive order on 7 February 2025 promising to “promote the resettlement of Afrikaner refugees escaping government-sponsored race-based discrimination, including racially discriminatory property confiscation”.

The US embassy in South Africa released a statement on 13 February confirming that “the U.S. Department of State is coordinating with the Department of Homeland Security and implementing partners to consider eligibility for U.S. refugee resettlement for disfavored ethnic minority Afrikaners in South Africa who are victims of unjust racial discrimination”.

Since then, there has been no official word on progress, and Daily Maverick’s attempts to seek further details have not met with success.

Is the offer for all white Afrikaners, or just farmers?

The initial executive order simply referenced “Afrikaners”.

Complicating matters, however, was a Truth Social post from Trump on 7 March 2025 in which he vowed specifically to assist South African farmers.

Trump wrote, in the context of the Expropriation Act: “Any Farmer (with family!) from South Africa, seeking to flee that country for reasons of safety, will be invited into the United States of America with a rapid pathway to Citizenship. This process will begin immediately!”

This raised further questions — once again, unanswered: Could English-speaking white South African farmers go? Could black South African farmers go?

I read that almost 70,000 people want to go?

This figure comes from the South African Chamber of Commerce in the USA, which is a private members’ organisation.

Amid much self-created fanfare, chamber representatives flew to the US Embassy in Pretoria to hand over the “information of 67,042 South Africans expressing interest in the resettlement opportunity offered by President Donald J. Trump’s Executive Order” on 18 March.

The chamber said at the time that those who had expressed interest were generally between 25 and 45 years old, with two or three dependents.

Since then it has been widely reported, including in the international press, that almost 70,000 people are interested in becoming refugees in the USA — but exactly what “expressing interest” means has not been clear.

How many Afrikaner farmers are there in South Africa?

Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni told a post-Cabinet media briefing last week that figures from Stats SA suggested that there were “41,122 farming units” in South Africa.

Of these, not all are farmed by Afrikaners or white people.

What’s the New York Times saying?

A report published on 30 March 2025 gives more information on the refugee project than has previously been available.

According to documents obtained by the New York Times, the programme is being called “Mission South Africa” and is currently in Phase One.

That has seen “multiple teams” deployed to Pretoria “to convert commercial office space… into ad hoc refugee centres”.

Those teams are “studying more than 8,200 requests expressing interest in resettling to the United States” — a far cry from the 70,000 number being bandied about.

Of those, the teams “have already identified 100 Afrikaners who could be approved for refugee status”.

Only 100 Afrikaners?

Don’t forget, however, that the project is still in its very earliest days.

The newspaper quotes a memo sent from the US embassy in Pretoria to the US State Department in Washington in March that said that by mid-April officials would “propose long-term solutions, to ensure the successful implementation of the president’s vision for the dignified resettlement of eligible Afrikaner applicants”.

Any other details from the NYT report?

“Security escorts” are being provided to US officials in South Africa “conducting the interviews of potential refugees”.

How easy is it normally to get asylum into the US?

It’s described as a “difficult and complex process”.

The US government form for asylum seekers’ applications requires applicants to provide “a detailed and specific account of the basis of your claim to asylum or other protection”, including providing specific “dates, places and descriptions” of your experiences of harm or mistreatment in your home country. DM

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