67,000 white South Africans express interest in Trump’s plan to give them refugee status

By Gerald Imray

The United States Embassy in South Africa said Thursday it received a list of more than 67,000 people interested in refugee status in the U.S. under President Donald Trump’s plan to relocate members of a white minority group he claims are victims of racial discrimination by their Black-led government.

The list was given to the embassy by the South African Chamber of Commerce in the U.S., which said it became a point of contact for white South Africans asking about the program announced by the Trump administration last month. The chamber said the list does not constitute official applications.

Trump issued an executive order on Feb. 7 cutting U.S. funding to South Africa and citing “government actions fueling disproportionate violence against racially disfavored landowners.”

Trump’s executive order specifically referred to Afrikaners, a white minority group who are descendants of mainly Dutch and French colonial settlers who first came to South Africa in the 17th century. The