Among President Trump’s most vocal supporters are South Africans seeking asylum in the US.
An estimated 6,300 people have arrived in the US since the administration’s announcement in February last year of a refugee resettlement program specifically for white South Africans and other minorities.
So far, 206 Afrikaners have resettled in Ohio, a state that has struggled with population decline for decades. The Trump administration recently announced it plans to increase by 10,000 the number of refugee resettlement places for South Africans this year.
But since arriving in the US, Afrikaners – largely the Afrikaans-speaking descendants of Dutch settlers and French Huguenots – have faced major challenges, in large part due to policies aimed at immigrants and enacted by the White House and Ohio’s Republican-run legislature.
Last June, Ohio introduced new driving license rules for lawful residents who are not citizens or green card holders.
They include the requirement for all applicants to complete eight hours of lessons through a designated driving school, 24 hours of classroom work and 50 hours of driving with a licensed adult before being able to take a driving exam. The cost of fulfilling these requirements is estimated at about $500 and could take up to nine months, when in the past it took a matter of weeks.
All this has created a major barrier for the new South African arrivals, many of whom claim to be victims of a so-called “white genocide”, a debunked conspiracy theory.
South Africa was an apartheid state for 48 years until 1991, a time in which many white South Africans prospered as land and business owners, while Black South Africans were subjected to systematic racism and poverty. Since the fall of apartheid, some white South Africans have claimed they have become victims of violence, racial attacks and targeting by successive governments.
A post on X by an Ohio-based South African from 7 May called for authorities to “Stop sending South African refugees to Ohio immediately!” due to alleged “ridiculous driving laws”.
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