Some refugees flee from wars and end up in squalid tented camps. Others defy this stereotype. Consider the white HR executive from South Africa whose application for protection in America rested partly on her claim that she had not had a pay rise in nine years because of her skin colour. „It’s a different type of persecution, but it’s still persecution,” says this newly minted refugee, who now enjoys the sunshine and safety of Florida. Of the roughly 6,000 refugees admitted to America since October, nearly all are white South Africans.
At the start of last year 130,000 people were in America’s refugee pipeline. Then Donald Trump closed the programme to all except Afrikaners (white South Africans who speak a language related to Dutch) and other minorities from South Africa. Mr Trump has said that white South Africans face „genocide”, which is nonsense. He also says they suffer „government-sponsored race-based discrimination”, which is true, but complicated. On May 26th he raised their quota for this fiscal year by 10,000 places, to 17,500 (the Afrikaner population of South Africa is roughly 3m).
To qualify as a refugee you have to show a credible fear of persecution. Afrikaners note that they are often victims of violent crime. But so, unfortunately, are all groups in South Africa. They also cite laws requiring racial preferences for blacks in higher education, hiring and government contracting. These were supposed to redress the wrongs of apartheid—until 1994 blacks were not allowed to vote. More than half a million white South Africans have emigrated in the past two decades. But few imagined that the laws might allow them to claim refugee status. Now they do. „You don’t have to lie and make up stories,” says Melissa (not her real name), another recent arrival in America. You can also cite your fear of „future persecution”, she adds.
Afrikaners present, in the words of one caseworker, a new „modality”, which is NGO-speak for new questions—such as whether pets can come, too. They tend to be fluent in English and Facebook, where they gripe about America’s threadbare social-safety net. „Managing expectations of resettled refugees is nothing new,” says Erol Kekic of Church World Service, a resettlement agency. „But there are expectations and then there are expectations.”
That Mr Trump axed cash handouts, food stamps and health-care subsidies for refugees just as the Afrikaners arrived is not lost on the newcomers. „We are the victims of that,” says Melissa. „I don’t think they thought this thing through very well.” She runs a Facebook message board where she tells others that the scheme is not a fairy tale. It is a refugee programme, not a „travel opportunity” or a „let’s see how it goes” arrangement. „You are fleeing your country,” she reminds her group. „This requires a clean break.”
Afrikaner-advocacy groups were not actually seeking refugee status when they embarked on an American media tour during Mr Trump’s first term. They just hoped that international pressure would make South Africa’s government ease up on affirmative-action policies. Kallie Kriel, head of AfriForum, one such group, says Afrikaners’ survival „as a people” can only happen at home. He wants „South African solutions to South African problems” and views his activism as „an act of loyalty” to save his country from „going the Zimbabwe route” (ie, degenerating into a farm-invading kleptocracy).
The refugee narrative has undermined these activists, says Carolyn Holmes of the University of Tennessee. „Everyone’s like, ‘If you’re going to leave, why should we bargain with you?’” It is even a little embarrassing. Afrikaners self-mythologise as voortrekkers: hardy pioneers who settled in the interior in the 19th century. Today they are called voetsekers, a play on the Afrikaans word for „get lost”.
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