Washington DC - President Donald Trump's administration on Monday moved forward with plans to admit 10,000 additional white South Africans as refugees per year.
Documents obtained by the New York Times on Monday reveal that President Donald Trump proposed that Congress lift the number of refugee admissions from 7,500 to 17,500 – exclusively prioritizing Afrikaners.
The decision is based on the argument that an "emergency refugee situation" is unfolding in South Africa, where the Trump administration alleges white minority groups are being persecuted by the current government.
Trump claims that Afrikaners are facing racial discrimination and genocide in South Africa via governmental land seizures and discriminatory laws introduced to address the legacy of apartheid.
It's expected that adding an additional 10,000 refugee slots for white South Africans will cost around $100 million in taxpayer money. A person familiar with the matter told the NYT that Congress will discuss the proposal over the coming days.
The move follows Washington's decision last year to reduce the cap of refugees allowed to stay in the country from 125,000 a year during the Biden administration to 7,500, with most slots set aside for white South Africans.
Trump's resettlement policy has been labeled "Apartheid 2.0" by South Africa's Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola, who in August denied all accusations of genocide and slammed the administration's "preferential treatment."
A year ago, Trump ambushed South African President Cyril Ramaphosa during a meeting at the White House, showing him a stack of printed articles that he claimed proved genocide against white people. It later turned out to be about a completely different conflict.
During the meeting, Ramaphosa pleaded with Trump to "talk about it very calmly" and said that he was in Washington to "reset the relationship between the United States and South Africa."