WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration plans to admit up to 10,000 more white South African refugees into the United States in the coming months, arguing that their status as Afrikaners has left them open to discrimination and persecution at home.
The South African government has said the Trump administration’s claims are baseless. But President Donald Trump has insisted the white Afrikaner minority has faced systematic discrimination and violence, particularly attacks against its farming communities — prompting him to cut off aid to South Africa, engage in a fiery Oval Office confrontation with its president and boycott last year’s Group of 20 summit in Johannesburg.
The State Department told Congress on Monday that it will admit up to 17,500 Afrikaners — a group of white South Africans descended mainly from Dutch settlers — as refugees through the fiscal year that ends in September. The administration initially indicated that it would only admit up to 7,500, mostly Afrikaners, in that time period, but said Monday that “unforeseen developments in South Africa created an emergency refugee situation.”
The administration’s plans were outlined in an emergency State Department notice sent to Congress on Monday evening and obtained by The Associated Press. CNN first reported the new refugee levels.
Under law, the administration is required to inform lawmakers about refugee levels for each fiscal year and to consult with them. Administration officials are slated to meet with Congress for the consultation process later this week, according to a congressional aide who was granted anonymity to confirm a private meeting.
The administration said the South African government’s rhetoric “across multiple ministries and political parties has sought to undermine the U.S. resettlement program and attacked Afrikaners,” pointing to recent comments from President Cyril Ramaphosa and other South African political figures. It also cited a December incident in which South African government officials raided a U.S. refugee processing center, which the administration at the time denounced as “unacceptable.”
“This escalating hostility heightens the risks to Afrikaners in South Africa, who are already subject to far-reaching government-sponsored race-based discrimination,” the State Department said in the notice.
The estimated cost for resettling the additional 10,000 refugees is about $100 million, according to the State Department.
The issue was a subject of a contentious Oval Office encounter between Trump and Ramaphosa last year, during which Trump played a video featuring a far-left politician chanting a song with the lyrics “kill the farmer.” Trump has repeatedly accused South Africa of failing to address a systematic killing of white farmers.
Experts in South Africa have said there is no evidence of whites being targeted for their race, although farmers of all races are victims of violence in South Africa, where there is a high crime rate. During the May 2025 meeting, Ramaphosa said “we are completely opposed to” the behavior that Trump referenced and added “that is not government policy” and “our government policy is completely, completely against what he was saying.”
The Trump administration’s overall refugee policy has marked a dramatic departure from that of his predecessors, significantly slashing the number of those who would be admitted. The 7,500 figure that the administration initially disclosed last year was a historic low number of refugees admitted to the U.S. since the program began in 1980.
FILE - President Donald Trump greets South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, center, at the White House, May 21, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)
