The United States is tightening the screws on asylum. The White House announced a historic reduction in its refugee reception program this Thursday, reports AFP. Washington plans to admit only 7,500 this year, compared to about 100,000 under the Biden administration. Unprecedented choice: the majority of these refugees will come from South Africa, and more precisely from the Afrikaner community, which is white and comes from the first European settlers.
Since 1980, more than two million refugees have found asylum in the United States. The country then wanted to be a welcoming land for those fleeing war, repression or political persecution. A model that is now deeply called into question. As soon as he returned to power in January, Donald Trump undertook a radical shift in migration policy: reduction in international aid, mass expulsions, suspension of reception of asylum seekers.
The text signed by the White House yesterday specifies that admissions will now be “mainly distributed among the Afrikaners of South Africa”which the Republican billionaire judges “despoiled and persecuted” and other groups victims of “unlawful or unfair discrimination ».
A decision criticized by NGOs
In May, around fifty white South Africans were already welcomed onto American soil. Afrikaners make up the majority of South Africa’s white population – around 7% of the country’s inhabitants – and are descended from Dutch and French settlers who settled there as early as the 17th century. It was from this community that the leaders of apartheid, a system of racial segregation applied from 1948 to 1991, came. If the South African government tries to repair this legacy, the question of land redistribution remains explosive. In 2017, white people still owned 72% of agricultural land, according to official figures.
For NGOs, the American decision amounts to a moral break. “For decades, the refugee program has been a lifeline for families fleeing war, persecution and repression”reacted Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, director of the Global Refuge association.
According to her, “concentrating the vast majority of admissions on a single group undermines the objective of the program as well as its credibility.” Same story from the American Immigration Council: “From now on, it will serve as an immigration route for whites”denounced Aaron Reichlin-Melnick on X.
