Almost 70,000 individuals have actually revealed interest in transferring to the U.S. as refugees under President Donald Trump’s questionable strategy to use haven to a white South African minority group.
The U.S. Embassy in South Africa verified getting the list of names southern African Chamber of Commerce in the U.S., which served as a point of contact for questions about the program.
The chamber clarified that the list does not represent official applications.
Trump released an executive order on February 7 cutting U.S. financing to South Africa and mentioning “federal government actions sustaining out of proportion violence versus racially disfavored landowners.”
Trump’s executive order particularly described Afrikaners, a white minority group who are descendants of primarily Dutch and French colonial inhabitants who initially pertained to South Africa in the 17th century.
The order directed Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem to focus on humanitarian relief to Afrikaners who are victims of “unfair racial discrimination” and transplant them in the U.S. under the refugee program.
There are around 2.7 million Afrikaners in South Africa, which has a population of 62 million. Trump’s choice to use some white South Africans refugee status broke his bigger policy to stop the U.S. refugee resettlement program.
The South African federal government has actually stated that Trump’s claims that it is targeting Afrikaners through a land expropriation law are incorrect and mainly driven by false information. Trump has actually published on his Reality Social platform that Afrikaners were having their farmland took, when no land has actually been taken under the brand-new law.
The executive order likewise slammed South Africa’s diplomacy, particularly its choice to implicate Israel of genocide versus Palestinians in Gaza in a case at the United Nations’ leading court. The Trump administration has actually implicated South Africa of supporting the Palestinian militant group Hamas and Iran and taking an anti-American position. The U.S. has actually likewise expelled the South African ambassador, implicating him of being anti-America and anti-Trump.
An authorities at the U.S. Embassy in the South African capital, Pretoria, verified invoice of the list of names southern African Chamber of Commerce in the U.S. however provided no more information.
Neil Diamond, the president of the chamber, stated the list consists of 67,042 names. The majority of were individuals in between 25 and 45 years of ages and have kids.
He informed the Newzroom Afrika tv channel that his company had actually been swamped with ask for more details considering that Trump’s order and had actually called the State Department and the embassy in Pretoria “to suggest that we would like them to make a channel readily available for South Africans that want to get more details and register for refugee status.”
“That can not be the obligation of the chamber,” he stated.
Diamond stated just U.S. authorities might formally sign up applications for resettlement in the U.S. The U.S. Embassy in South Africa stated it is waiting for even more directions on the application of Trump’s order.