President Trump had halted essentially refugee admissions on his first day in office before creating a pathway for Afrikaners, a white ethnic minority that ruled during apartheid.
The first plane carrying white South Africans who received refugee status from the Trump administration landed at Washington Dulles International Airport on Monday morning, according to a flight tracking website.
The arrival marks a drastic reversal in the United States’ refugee policies, which have long focused on helping people fleeing war, famine and genocide. President Trump essentially halted all refugee admissions programs on his first day in office before creating a pathway for Afrikaners, a white ethnic minority that ruled during apartheid in South Africa, to resettle in the United States.
The group that arrived Monday on a U.S.-funded Omni Air International charter flight say they have been discriminated against, denied job opportunities and have been subject to violence because of their race. 49 Afrikaners boarded the flight on Sunday, according to a spokesman for South Africa’s airport authority, after more than 8,000 people expressed interest in the program. There are scant details available about the individuals who arrived in the United States.
The South Africans who reached the United States on Monday had received expedited processing by the Trump administration — waiting no more than three months. Refugee resettlement before the first Trump administration took an average of 18 to 24 months, according to the American Immigration Council, an advocacy group for immigrants.
Mr. Trump said on Monday that the United States was extending citizenship to these individuals, who he said were victims of a genocide.
“Farmers are being killed,” he told reporters. “They happen to be white. Whether they are white or Black makes no difference to me. White farmers are being brutally killed and the land is being confiscated in South Africa.”