Pretoria, South Africa
South African authorities have arrested seven Kenyan nationals for working illegally at a facility processing refugee applications for white South Africans, further straining relations with the United States. The Department of Home Affairs confirmed that the Kenyans, who entered the country on tourist visas, were found working at a support centre operated by Church World Service (CWS) on behalf of the US. While the Trump administration has slashed the overall US global refugee quota from 125,000 to just 7,500, it has explicitly prioritised white Afrikaners—descendants of Dutch and French settlers—claiming they face “persecution” and “genocide.” The South African government has dismissed these claims as baseless and accused the US of coordinating with undocumented workers, while the US State Department has demanded “immediate clarification” for what it calls an “unacceptable” interference in its operations.
The diplomatic friction is rooted in a fundamental disagreement over land reform and the legacy of apartheid, which has left the majority of South African farmland in white hands. President Donald Trump’s administration offered refugee status to Afrikaners following the introduction of South African laws allowing land seizure without compensation in specific circumstances. Despite South African officials’ insistence that no land has yet been seized and that white farmers are not disproportionately targeted by crime, the US has already begun relocating small groups of Afrikaners via chartered flights.
The rift has seen a sharp deterioration in bilateral ties, culminating in a US boycott of the recent G20 summit in South Africa and a refusal to invite South African officials to major international meetings.
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