"Refugee" for (white) me, but not for (brown and black) thee
Katie Phang
In another chapter of overt Trump 2.0 racism, the Trump Administration now bastardizes the famous quote on the Statue of Liberty to basically say: “Give me your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, but only if they’re white Afrikaners from South Africa.” If you’re not in that group, don’t even bother to try to come here.
On February 7, 2025, Trump signed yet another inane Executive Order, this one halting all foreign assistance to South Africa, but PRIORITIZING the “admission and resettlement” of white “Afrikaner refugees” into the United States because of the country’s “countless government policies designed to dismantle equal opportunity in employment, education, and business, and hateful rhetoric and government actions fueling disproportionate violence against racially disfavored landowners.” Trump claimed that the South African government was committing “massive human rights violations” by “confiscating land, and treating certain classes of people [white Afrikaners] VERY BADLY.” He also falsely accused the government of “racial discrimination” against white African farmers.
Trump’s EO was deemed to be retribution for a recent law that was signed by South Africa’s President, Cyril Ramaphosa, in January of 2025. Called the Expropriation Act of 2024, it repealed an apartheid-era law and provides for a judicial process by which the government can seize privately-held land without paying compensation, but only in circumstances where it is “just and equitable and in the public interest” to do so.
Important Background: During Apartheid, the Natives Land Act of 1913 restricted Black South African land ownership to only 7% of the country. This number may have been (nominally) increased to 13% in 1936, while the country was simultaneously implementing the brutal and forced removal and dispossession of land by Black owners.
https://katiephang.substack.com/p/refugee-for-white-me-but-not-for