South Africa has been in President Trump's crosshairs over the past few months, with Trump accusing the African nation's government of confiscating land from white farmers—a claim that South African President Cyril Ramaphosa denies. Trump issued an executive order in February that cut aid to South Africa and encouraged "Afrikaner refugees escaping government-sponsored race-based discrimination" to resettle in the US. (Reuters notes that Afrikaners refers to the minority of "mostly white descendants of early Dutch and French settlers" who currently wield control over most of the nation's farmland.) And it looks like Trump has some takers: More than 67,000 people, most with Afrikaner or English last names, have expressed interest in making the move to the US, reports the BBC.
That's how many signed up on the website of the South African Chamber of Commerce in the USA, a US-based business group representing South African professionals living in the US. The organization said it has handed over the list of interested parties to the US Embassy in Pretoria, as confirmed by the embassy, though SACCUSA stressed that the list didn't constitute official applications, per the AP. The group notes that most who showed interest were between the ages of 25 and 45 and had children.
"I think it's a very nice gesture from Donald Trump to offer us asylum over there," a 57-year-old carpenter from Bothasig tells Reuters. Still, not all are eager to take Trump up on his offer. "Afrikaners do not want to be refugees. We love and are committed to our homeland," say representatives from Orania, a whites-only Northern Cape town. Kallie Kriel, head of the Afrikaners-led AfriForum, adds: "Emigration only offers an opportunity for Afrikaners who are willing to risk potentially sacrificing their descendants' cultural identity as Afrikaners. The price for that is simply too high." (More South Africa stories.)
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