May 26, 2025 • 11 mins
Earlier this month, a group of white South African refugees arrived in the U.S. after an executive order by U.S. President Donald Trump. Trump claims the group are being targeted as victims of "racial discrimination" and has therefore extended refugee protection to the group. In today’s podcast, we’ll explain the story behind the headline, and what you need to know about the Trump administration’s decision to grant refugee status to white South Africans.
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Hosts: Lucy Tassell and Zara Seidler
Producer: Orla Maher
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Already and this is the daily This is the Daily OS.
Oh now it makes sense. Good morning, and welcome to
the Daily ODS. It's Tuesday, the twenty seventh of May.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
I'm Lucy Tassel, I'm Zara Zeidler.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Earlier this month, a group of white South African refugees
arrived in the US after an executive order by President
Donald Trump. Trump claims the group are being targeted as
victims of quote racial discrimination, and has therefore extended refugee
protection to the group. In today's podcast, we'll explain the
story behind the headlines and what you need to know
(00:42):
about the Trump administration's decision to grant refugee status to
white South Africans.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Lucy, this is a story that has been flying around
now for a few weeks, and then last week we
published a video to TDA Instagram showing US President Donald
Trump and South African President Cyril Ramafosa arguing in the
White House.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
White South Africans are fleeing because of the violence and
racist laws. Look, here's burial sites all over the place.
They're all these are all white farmers that are being burned.
And when they killed the white farmer, nothing happens to them. No,
there is nothing happens.
Speaker 4 (01:24):
There is criminality in our country.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
People who do get killed, unfortunately through criminalibity are not only.
Speaker 4 (01:34):
White people, majority of them black people.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Now, there's a lot going on here, there's a lot
of history, there's a lot of context. Can you, I guess,
start by just explaining more about what Trump specifically is
alleging is happening in South Africa today.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Basically as soon as he came to office for the
second time earlier this year, US President Donald Trump began
making public statements and shoeing official guidance claiming that white
South Africans, specifically the ethnic group called Africanas, were having
their land stolen by the government. He said these people
(02:11):
would be granted refugee status in the US because they
were the quote victims of unjust racial discrimination. Then a
couple of months down the track, so earlier this month,
fifty nine white South Africans arrived in the US as refugees.
They're going to be resettled around the country. It's a
very serious allegation to lay against South Africa, against any country,
(02:34):
but I think particularly against South Africa, that a group
of people are being so racially discriminated against that we
need to extract them.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
And so why is that such a loaded, I guess
accusation for a country like South Africa.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Unfortunately I don't have a simple answer. I wish I
did in order to understand that, we need to take
a step back in time. So the Netherlands began colonizing
the region we now know as South Africa in the
sixteen fifties through the Dutch East India Company. You might
remember from a couple of weeks ago when we were
talking about Kashmir, how the British had the British East
(03:11):
India Company. Same deal, but in the Netherlands, a very
very powerful company, effectively a state unto itself, with its
own kind of representatives and just being like incredibly powerful.
Through trade, through colonization, through slavery, through farming, the Dutch
took control of the region from its southern tip, the
(03:33):
Cape of Good Hope. Over time, these Dutch colonizers developed
into an ethnic minority in the region called Africanas, with
their own language that was a dialect of Dutch that
then became its own language called Afrikaans. They also fought
wars with the British for control of the land during
this time. Then fast forward again to nineteen fourteen when
(03:56):
the Afrikaanas founded their own political party, National Party. It
became a very powerful force. It was aligned against black
South Africans and against the British, their long term enemies
in the war for resources and for land. And then
we'll jump forward one more time to nineteen forty eight.
The National Party takes power by itself, not in a coalition,
(04:18):
and it enacted the policy known as apartheid.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Okay, and apartheid is obviously a huge moment in history,
in world's history, local pastory. For anyone who's perhaps less
familiar with this history, can you just give a bit
of a refresher. What was apartheid?
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Yeah, just broad brush strokes. From nineteen forty eight to
nineteen ninety four, South Africa separated people based on their race.
The government passed laws either limiting or outright banning movements, education, jobs, pay,
and marriage for non white people. This ended after decades
of peaceful and violent struggles when the party, the African
(04:59):
National Congress, led by Nelson Mandela, won the country's first
modern elections. Since then, things have not been completely peaceful
in South Africa. I think it's easy to understand that
when you end a system that longstanding and that kind
of corrosive, you don't just like snap your fingers and
everything becomes multicultural harmony. The crime rate is fairly high,
(05:23):
particularly the murder rate, and the economy has definitely struggled
in South Africa. The latest started though that I looked
at this week, shows that the rate of murders is
down in all but one region of South Africa. And
then just a final note on the kind of state
of the country in its modern era. White South Africans
make up around ten percent or less than ten percent
(05:45):
of the population, but white farmers own around three quarters
of the country's land.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
And so you've spoken there of land, and land is
at the center of the claims that Donald Trump is
now making about modern day South Africa. Specifically, he's claiming,
as you said, that white South Africans are being targeted
or murdered and are having their land stolen. Where is
this claim from US President Donald Trump coming from? What
(06:12):
is the basis for this claim?
Speaker 1 (06:14):
The land theft aspect is easier to explain to I'll
start there. South African President Cyril Ramafosa signed a bill
into law in January which allows the government to redistribute
land deemed in the public interest. It includes provisions enabling
land distribution without compensation in very specific cases, such as
(06:35):
when it's deemed to be abandoned. Following that announcement, Trump
accused South Africa of quote confiscating land and treating certain
classes of people very badly, and then soon after that,
he signed his executive order allowing white South Africans to
apply for refugee status.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
We'll be back with the rest of today's deep dive
after a quick message from our sponsor.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
To the other point. As I said, the murder rate
in South Africa is high. It is true that some
white farmers make up this statistic. We have official data
that shows this. However, in February, a South African court
ruled that claims of genocide against white South Africans were
quote clearly imagined and not real. Then over the weekend
we heard from South African Police Minister Senzo mccunu, who
(07:25):
released new crime data and specifically went out of his
way to deny Trump's claims.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
It is claimed that his white genocide in South Africa,
and as evidence, a lot of material has been put
into circulation all over social media, including in the White
House in the USA. Now, we have respect for the
United States of America, and we have respect for the
President of the United States, but we have no respect
(07:53):
for his genocide story.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
So the minister said he wasn't going to deny that
crime levels were high, and he did say there had
been six attacks on people on farms in rural areas
in the first three months of this year, but that
of the six attacks, only one victim was white.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Okay, So if those are the statistics, where is this
idea coming from?
Speaker 4 (08:16):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (08:16):
So, Reuters has reported that the idea of a like
quote unquote white genocide of farmers in South Africa originated
as a conspiracy theory in far right chat rooms. Another
place it has popped up this month is in text
generated by an AI chatbot on the social media platform X,
(08:38):
which is owned by Elon Musk, who is himself white
and from South Africa. I'll say X has called that
randomly generated text an unauthorized modification that's being fixed. However,
Musk has publicly suggested that the current government of South
Africa is perpetrating a genocide against white people, and he
(08:59):
is also so a close advisor of Donald Trump and
was in the room when Trump raised these allegations with
Cyril Ramafosa.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
I want to circle back to this idea of Donald
Trump making a special executive order to bring white South
Africans into the country because so much of Donald Trump's
immigration policy has been about deporting people out of the country. Yeah,
how can we understand this in the context of the
Trump administration and Donald Trump's immigration policy.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Yeah, it is definitely different to the other things that
he has done or has overseen. So you might remember
that on his first day in office, he signed a
bunch of executive orders, which are official actions that the
president can take that circumvent the need to go through
the Congress, and one of those things was pausing the
country's refugee program indefinitely. But then he has also opened
(09:53):
it up to this specific group, and he's also overseen
the deportation and imprisonment of legal micro pereants and edended
programs that allowed people without official documentation to live and
work in the US. So it certainly stands in contrast
to the remainder of his immigration policy that this very
(10:14):
select group, so select that it's fewer than sixty people
so far have been allowed to come in on this
refugee program. It's certainly interesting to see how that squares
with the rest of his documented policy, and I guess
it remains to be seen how many more people will
be given this opportunity to come to the US, and
given that they've come, I suppose from rural South African
(10:35):
farming communities, what their life is going to look like
once they're settled in the US.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Lucie, thank you so much for explaining the story behind
the headlines that I know so many of our audience
will have seen, and thank you for joining us for
another day of the Daily Ours. We'll of course be
back later today with the headlines, but until then, have
a great day.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud at
a udah Banjelung Kalkadin woman from Gadighl country. The Daily
oz acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on the lands
of the Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal
and torrest Rate island and nations. We pay our respects
to the first peoples of these countries, both past and present.
Already and this is the daily This is the Daily OS.
Oh now it makes sense. Good morning, and welcome to
the Daily ODS. It's Tuesday, the twenty seventh of May.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
I'm Lucy Tassel, I'm Zara Zeidler.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Earlier this month, a group of white South African refugees
arrived in the US after an executive order by President
Donald Trump. Trump claims the group are being targeted as
victims of quote racial discrimination, and has therefore extended refugee
protection to the group. In today's podcast, we'll explain the
story behind the headlines and what you need to know
(00:42):
about the Trump administration's decision to grant refugee status to
white South Africans.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Lucy, this is a story that has been flying around
now for a few weeks, and then last week we
published a video to TDA Instagram showing US President Donald
Trump and South African President Cyril Ramafosa arguing in the
White House.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
White South Africans are fleeing because of the violence and
racist laws. Look, here's burial sites all over the place.
They're all these are all white farmers that are being burned.
And when they killed the white farmer, nothing happens to them. No,
there is nothing happens.
Speaker 4 (01:24):
There is criminality in our country.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
People who do get killed, unfortunately through criminalibity are not only.
Speaker 4 (01:34):
White people, majority of them black people.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Now, there's a lot going on here, there's a lot
of history, there's a lot of context. Can you, I guess,
start by just explaining more about what Trump specifically is
alleging is happening in South Africa today.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Basically as soon as he came to office for the
second time earlier this year, US President Donald Trump began
making public statements and shoeing official guidance claiming that white
South Africans, specifically the ethnic group called Africanas, were having
their land stolen by the government. He said these people
(02:11):
would be granted refugee status in the US because they
were the quote victims of unjust racial discrimination. Then a
couple of months down the track, so earlier this month,
fifty nine white South Africans arrived in the US as refugees.
They're going to be resettled around the country. It's a
very serious allegation to lay against South Africa, against any country,
(02:34):
but I think particularly against South Africa, that a group
of people are being so racially discriminated against that we
need to extract them.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
And so why is that such a loaded, I guess
accusation for a country like South Africa.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Unfortunately I don't have a simple answer. I wish I
did in order to understand that, we need to take
a step back in time. So the Netherlands began colonizing
the region we now know as South Africa in the
sixteen fifties through the Dutch East India Company. You might
remember from a couple of weeks ago when we were
talking about Kashmir, how the British had the British East
(03:11):
India Company. Same deal, but in the Netherlands, a very
very powerful company, effectively a state unto itself, with its
own kind of representatives and just being like incredibly powerful.
Through trade, through colonization, through slavery, through farming, the Dutch
took control of the region from its southern tip, the
(03:33):
Cape of Good Hope. Over time, these Dutch colonizers developed
into an ethnic minority in the region called Africanas, with
their own language that was a dialect of Dutch that
then became its own language called Afrikaans. They also fought
wars with the British for control of the land during
this time. Then fast forward again to nineteen fourteen when
(03:56):
the Afrikaanas founded their own political party, National Party. It
became a very powerful force. It was aligned against black
South Africans and against the British, their long term enemies
in the war for resources and for land. And then
we'll jump forward one more time to nineteen forty eight.
The National Party takes power by itself, not in a coalition,
(04:18):
and it enacted the policy known as apartheid.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Okay, and apartheid is obviously a huge moment in history,
in world's history, local pastory. For anyone who's perhaps less
familiar with this history, can you just give a bit
of a refresher. What was apartheid?
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Yeah, just broad brush strokes. From nineteen forty eight to
nineteen ninety four, South Africa separated people based on their race.
The government passed laws either limiting or outright banning movements, education, jobs, pay,
and marriage for non white people. This ended after decades
of peaceful and violent struggles when the party, the African
(04:59):
National Congress, led by Nelson Mandela, won the country's first
modern elections. Since then, things have not been completely peaceful
in South Africa. I think it's easy to understand that
when you end a system that longstanding and that kind
of corrosive, you don't just like snap your fingers and
everything becomes multicultural harmony. The crime rate is fairly high,
(05:23):
particularly the murder rate, and the economy has definitely struggled
in South Africa. The latest started though that I looked
at this week, shows that the rate of murders is
down in all but one region of South Africa. And
then just a final note on the kind of state
of the country in its modern era. White South Africans
make up around ten percent or less than ten percent
(05:45):
of the population, but white farmers own around three quarters
of the country's land.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
And so you've spoken there of land, and land is
at the center of the claims that Donald Trump is
now making about modern day South Africa. Specifically, he's claiming,
as you said, that white South Africans are being targeted
or murdered and are having their land stolen. Where is
this claim from US President Donald Trump coming from? What
(06:12):
is the basis for this claim?
Speaker 1 (06:14):
The land theft aspect is easier to explain to I'll
start there. South African President Cyril Ramafosa signed a bill
into law in January which allows the government to redistribute
land deemed in the public interest. It includes provisions enabling
land distribution without compensation in very specific cases, such as
(06:35):
when it's deemed to be abandoned. Following that announcement, Trump
accused South Africa of quote confiscating land and treating certain
classes of people very badly, and then soon after that,
he signed his executive order allowing white South Africans to
apply for refugee status.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
We'll be back with the rest of today's deep dive
after a quick message from our sponsor.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
To the other point. As I said, the murder rate
in South Africa is high. It is true that some
white farmers make up this statistic. We have official data
that shows this. However, in February, a South African court
ruled that claims of genocide against white South Africans were
quote clearly imagined and not real. Then over the weekend
we heard from South African Police Minister Senzo mccunu, who
(07:25):
released new crime data and specifically went out of his
way to deny Trump's claims.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
It is claimed that his white genocide in South Africa,
and as evidence, a lot of material has been put
into circulation all over social media, including in the White
House in the USA. Now, we have respect for the
United States of America, and we have respect for the
President of the United States, but we have no respect
(07:53):
for his genocide story.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
So the minister said he wasn't going to deny that
crime levels were high, and he did say there had
been six attacks on people on farms in rural areas
in the first three months of this year, but that
of the six attacks, only one victim was white.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Okay, So if those are the statistics, where is this
idea coming from?
Speaker 4 (08:16):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (08:16):
So, Reuters has reported that the idea of a like
quote unquote white genocide of farmers in South Africa originated
as a conspiracy theory in far right chat rooms. Another
place it has popped up this month is in text
generated by an AI chatbot on the social media platform X,
(08:38):
which is owned by Elon Musk, who is himself white
and from South Africa. I'll say X has called that
randomly generated text an unauthorized modification that's being fixed. However,
Musk has publicly suggested that the current government of South
Africa is perpetrating a genocide against white people, and he
(08:59):
is also so a close advisor of Donald Trump and
was in the room when Trump raised these allegations with
Cyril Ramafosa.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
I want to circle back to this idea of Donald
Trump making a special executive order to bring white South
Africans into the country because so much of Donald Trump's
immigration policy has been about deporting people out of the country. Yeah,
how can we understand this in the context of the
Trump administration and Donald Trump's immigration policy.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Yeah, it is definitely different to the other things that
he has done or has overseen. So you might remember
that on his first day in office, he signed a
bunch of executive orders, which are official actions that the
president can take that circumvent the need to go through
the Congress, and one of those things was pausing the
country's refugee program indefinitely. But then he has also opened
(09:53):
it up to this specific group, and he's also overseen
the deportation and imprisonment of legal micro pereants and edended
programs that allowed people without official documentation to live and
work in the US. So it certainly stands in contrast
to the remainder of his immigration policy that this very
(10:14):
select group, so select that it's fewer than sixty people
so far have been allowed to come in on this
refugee program. It's certainly interesting to see how that squares
with the rest of his documented policy, and I guess
it remains to be seen how many more people will
be given this opportunity to come to the US, and
given that they've come, I suppose from rural South African
(10:35):
farming communities, what their life is going to look like
once they're settled in the US.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Lucie, thank you so much for explaining the story behind
the headlines that I know so many of our audience
will have seen, and thank you for joining us for
another day of the Daily Ours. We'll of course be
back later today with the headlines, but until then, have
a great day.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud at
a udah Banjelung Kalkadin woman from Gadighl country. The Daily
oz acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on the lands
of the Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal
and torrest Rate island and nations. We pay our respects
to the first peoples of these countries, both past and present.
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