Staff Reporter
The United States has introduced new visa restrictions targeting foreign nationals it says are responsible for race-based discrimination, incitement to violence or policies enabling land seizures without compensation in South Africa.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio made the announcement on Tuesday night SA time.
“The South African government has not adequately addressed the previously laid out concerns and so today, I am announcing a new visa restriction policy under Section 212(a)(3)(C) of the Immigration and Nationality Act targeting foreign nationals who are responsible for, or complicit in, the enactment or implementation of laws or policies that enable uncompensated land seizures, race-based discrimination, and/or the incitement of imminent violence against members of minority ethnic or racial groups in South Africa,” Rubio said.
“The United States will not allow such behavior to go unchecked. These actions directly undermine peace, economic stability, and the rule of law, and they are incompatible with the pillars of America’s foreign policy.”
Rubio said certain family members of those targeted could also fall under the restrictions.
The policy was introduced under a provision of the US Immigration and Nationality Act that allows the secretary of state to declare a foreign national inadmissible if their entry into the United States “would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States”.
In February last year, President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14204, which accused South Africa of rights violations against Afrikaners. He directed US agencies to halt foreign aid to the country while prioritising the resettlement of Afrikaners in the US, which was later extended to all racial minorities.
In his statement, Rubio said the United States remained “gravely concerned about racially motivated crime and government-sponsored discrimination occurring against the Afrikaners and other minority populations in South Africa, including race-based discriminatory legislation, threats of land expropriation without compensation, and incitement of racial violence through dehumanizing chants and slogans”.
“We once again strongly urge the South African government to quickly address these egregious actions,” Rubio said.
The Trump administration and the South African government have been at odds over Pretoria’s land reform policies and measures designed to address racial inequalities inherited from apartheid.
Pretoria has repeatedly rejected Washington’s claims that the government is confiscating land or persecuting white South Africans.
The Ramaphosa administration has said the Expropriation Act, signed into law in January 2025, establishes a constitutional process through which property may be expropriated for a public purpose or in the public interest and does not permit arbitrary confiscation.
The law does provide for circumstances in which “nil compensation” may be considered just and equitable when land is expropriated in the public interest. These include certain cases involving unused land held for speculative purposes, abandoned land, unused state-owned land acquired for no consideration, and land where its market value is no greater than direct state investment or subsidies in it.
Those provisions are now the subject of a constitutional challenge in the Western Cape High Court by AfriForum and the Democratic Alliance, amongst others.
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