First Afrikaners Arrive Monday in U.S.

Trump Imports "Endangered" White South Africans

On the evening of March 15, 2025, three flights took off for El Salvador in defiance of a court order issued by federal judge James E. Boasberg at 9:40 a.m. that morning.

On the planes, chained at their hands and wrists, were 261 immigrant detainees, among them 238 Venezuelans and 23 Salvadorans, including Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

Upon arrival at the Center for Terrorism Confinement (CECOT) in El Salvador, the refugees were met by an army of soldiers and police ready to detain them.

Philip Holsinger, a photographer, documented the abuse of the immigrants in a shocking photo essay for Time Magazine. Guards slapped, kicked, and shoved the men. They shaved the men’s heads and stripped them naked, discarding countless yards of hair along with their clothing.

A 60 Minutes report would later show that 75 percent of the immigrants abducted and deported had no criminal record whatsoever.

But in a shocking exception to its “closed borders” immigration policy and unlawful abductions and deportations, the Trump administration plans to welcome the first group of 64 white South African citizens (Afrikaners) to the U.S. on Monday, May 12.

These privileged immigrants won’t be accused of crimes that they haven’t committed.

They won’t be in shackles, or subject to bodily harm.

Instead, they’ll be placed on a charter flight from Johannesburg to Washington Dulles International airport, where they’ll be greeted by government officials and take part in a ceremony to mark their arrival.

They’ll be given vouchers for hotel lodgings, food, and other essentials.

White South Africans gathered outside the United States of America Embassy in Pretoria in February. Photo: Nigel Sibanda/The Citizen

In other words, Trump has halted the movement of Black and Brown refugees fleeing real persecution into the U.S., while offering white South Africans escaping imagined persecution a fast track to U.S. asylum.

According to the American Immigration Council, an immigrant advocacy group, refugee resettlement takes an average of 18 to 24 months, and often years longer.

The Afrikaners, however, have waited a mere three months.

In Thursday’s column, I covered the Alien Enemies Act, the executive order offering refugee status to white South Africans, and the disinformation that abetted the two.

The next day, NPR broke the news about the Afrikaners’ impending arrival. Reuters, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, CBS, NPR, and numerous other outlets have since covered it.

The layers in this order deserve focus on their own. Today, I’d like to delve a little deeper into the executive order behind Trump’s importing of white South Africans to the U.S. under the refugee status he has refused to Black and Brown immigrants.

(A quick note: Thursday’s piece was two long reads squeezed into one. For ease of reading and to do more justice to each, I’ll split them into two and adding more context and information to each. This is the first of a two-part series.)

Armed Guards and Police Meet U.S. Immigrants in El Salvador. Photo: Philip Holsinger/Time.

Trump’s Executive Disorder Targets South African Independence

The executive order enacted by Trump on February 7, 2025, is titled “Addressing Egregious Actions of The Republic of South Africa.”

The order is itself egregious, and redolent of white supremacy.

It begins by citing South Africa’s Expropriation Act, passed in 2024, and wrongly interpreting the act as enabling the South African government to “seize ethnic minority Afrikaners’ agricultural property without compensation.”

The order casts the Expropriation Act as one of South Africa’s many policies designed to “dismantle equal opportunity in employment, education, and business.” It decries the government’s “hateful rhetoric” and “actions fueling disproportionate violence against racially disfavored landowners.”

And in an interesting twist, the order accuses South Africa of taking “aggressive positions” toward the U.S. and its allies and endangering U.S. foreign policy, primarily in bringing genocide charges against Israel to the International Court of Justice.

In the order, the U.S. states that it will cease all aid until South Africa ceases “race-based discrimination” against white South Africans and withdraws its genocide case against Israel.

At the end of February, the government terminated support for HIV organizations funded by the US President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (PEPFAR).

PEPFAR funds one-fifth of the world’s largest HIV public health program, which supports approximately 5.9 million people receiving antiretroviral therapy through the public healthcare system and is estimated to have saved 25 million lives worldwide.

This will endanger the lives of 25.6 million people living with HIV in Africa, about 68 percent of the global total, according to the World Health Organization.

In an op-ed for The Guardian, Achille Mbembe and Ruth Wilson Gilmore (whose work on carceral geography I cited in this piece) explain Trump’s order as the escalation of an existing strategy to condemn, isolate and punish South Africa for charting an independent course for its people and for its relationship to the international community at large.

The deadly cruelty of targeting South Africa’s health policy, Mbembe and Gilmore say, is the point.

To justify the blatant racism in February’s executive order, the U.S. government is citing a far-right conspiracy theory.

The false claim: that white South African farmers endure unjust racial discrimination and government-sanctioned violence, and are at imminent risk of “genocide” at the hands of Black South Africans.

The delusion that minority whites in South Africa face discrimination from its Black majority has been levied not just by Trump but by South African-born Trump advisor Elon Musk, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Stephen Miller, chief architect of the Trump administration’s immigration policy.

Miller told reporters that the situation in South Africa fit the “textbook definition” of why the refugee program was created, and that it was “race-based persecution.”

But multiple coalitions in South Africa’s government have fact-checked Trump’s accusations, including the alleged confiscation of land.

Ramaphosa issued a statement in February. "South Africa is a constitutional democracy that is deeply rooted in the rule of law, justice and equality,” he said, adding, “The South African Government has not confiscated any land."

South African presidential spokesperson Vincent Magwenya offered a rebuttal of his own. “The recently adopted Expropriation Act,” said Magwenya, “is not a confiscation instrument but a constitutionally mandated legal process that ensures public access to land.”

Even the Democratic Alliance of South Africa, which was against the Expropriation Act, has expressed concern about Trump’s interpretation and his threats. Willie Aucamp, spokesperson for the Alliance, said, “It is not true that the Act allows land to be seized by the state arbitrarily, and it does require fair compensation for legitimate expropriations.”

South Africa’s 1996 constitution requires that land dispossession resulting from colonialism must be addressed as an urgent moral priority. The government has taken steps to remedy the land dispossession caused by decades of apartheid.

A land audit by the South African government in 2018 found that white people comprise 7.2 percent of the population but hold between 50 and 70 percent of all privately owned farmland.

And police statistics show that white South Africans are no more vulnerable to violent crime than others. A State Department report on South Africa in the first Trump administration said that “farm killings represented only 0.2 percent of all killings in the country.” Those killings have remained minuscule in the years since.

What’s more, white South Africans are far better off than Black people on virtually every marker of the economic scale.

A stunning new study on the racial wealth gap in the U.S. and South Africa offers a valuable account of the racialized aspects of economic inequality that emerged with both chattel slavery in the U.S. and apartheid in South Africa.

In South Africa, the typical Black household owns 5 percent of the wealth held by the typical white household. In the U.S., the typical Black household owns 6 percent of the wealth held by the typical white household.

The study’s central finding: the racial wealth gap does not diminish as people become more educated. Instead, in both the U.S. and Africa, it increases with educational attainment—and, in addition, persists even across income groups and age cohorts.

The authors conclude, “The fact that the racial wealth gap in the US is similar to that of a country that recently emerged from apartheid is a sobering indictment.”

But Trump's racist, imperialist aims have helped unite the majority of South Africans.

Max du Preez, the Afrikaner writer and historian who founded the first anti-apartheid newspaper in Afrikaans, debunked the government’s assertions about discrimination against white South Africans.

In an Op-Ed for The Guardian, Du Preez said, “South Africa’s progressive constitution with its extensive bill of rights is intact; the rule of law is maintained and the judiciary is independent and functioning; we are a genuinely open society with free speech and media that many other democracies, especially Trump’s America, can be jealous of.”

The Conspiracy Theory Behind South African-U.S. Immigration

The government’s executive order also echoes the antisemitic and racist Great Replacement Theory, which alleges that Jewish, Black, and Brown immigrants and residents are “poisoning the blood of the nation,” are “terrorists,” or intend to “rape or kill” U.S. citizens. The theory also contends that liberal and progressive politicians deliberately seek to change U.S. demographics by replacing conservative white voters with their Black, Brown, and progressive Jewish counterparts.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, nearly 7 in 10 Republicans surveyed endorse the belief that changing U.S. demographics are linked to deliberate attempts to replace them with liberal and progressive voters.

To white many conservative people, equality feels like persecution. Loss of power feels like existential death and therefore, like “genocide.”

This is a deliberate strengthening of the U.S. racial caste system, a racial importation policy designed to shore up a “threatened” white demographic inside U.S. borders.

According to Max du Preez, the rebranding of Afrikaners as victims has great resonance among the American far-right.

“They’re playing on the thing of the white Christian civilization being threatened,” said Du Preez. “And that has a lot of appeal among the evangelicals and others in the United States.”

With Musk, Follow the Money Trail

Why might Elon Musk accuse South Africa of racist ownership laws?

He has an ulterior motive: The Starlink Enterprise.

Musk, it turns out, has rejected a requirement that foreign investors in South Africa’s telecoms sector provide 30 percent of the equity in the South African part of the enterprise to Black-owned businesses.

He is now pressuring the South African government to exempt Starlink from regulations that would uplift Black South Africans oppressed by apartheid.

The Washington Post reports that amid its tariff trade talks with other nations, the U.S. government is using Starlink adoption as a lever for negotiation lever in trade talks with other nations.

In recent weeks, several countries have moved forward with licensing the Musk-owned satellite internet company, including India, Somalia, Lesotho, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Vietnam.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Embassy in South Africa reported that the group of white Afrikaners arriving on Monday is just the beginning. More than 67,000 people, the Embassy claims have expressed interest in becoming “refugees” in the U.S.

The majority of white South Africans, however, have said, in no uncertain terms, “no thanks.”

___________________________________________________

For over a decade, immigration has remained Trump’s ace in the hand, the one he leverages to gain domestic and foreign power.

But that ace, it turns out, may be a weaker one than he’d thought.

Overall, the last week has been a bad stretch of luck for Trump.

This week, federal judge Jamal Whitehead ordered the Trump administration to lift the ban on refugees who cleared for travel before Mr. Trump took office. and to give them the opportunity to finally enter the country.

On May 5, the New York Times reported on a newly declassified memo from multiple U.S. intelligence agencies that directly contradicts Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act. The memo corroborates intelligence findings reported by The New York Times in March stating that these U.S. intelligence agencies do not believe that the administration of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, controls a criminal gang, Tren de Aragua.

On May 6, a U.S. judge in Boston ordered a temporary block on the Trump administration's plan to deport migrants to Libya, saying it would "clearly violate" his prior order ensuring migrants’ right to due process.

And on May 8, a new Pope was named: Robert Francis Prevost. According to the noted genealogist Jari Christopher Honora, the Pope descends from Louisiana Creoles of color through his grandmother, Louise Baquie (born New Orleans, 1868), and Haitian ancestry through his grandfather, Joseph Martinez (born Port-au-Prince, 1864).

The new pope has called the U.S. government’s position on immigration “wrong.”

________________________________

Postscript:

In a striking move on May 12, just as the Afrikaners touched down in Washington, D.C., the Episcopal Church announced that it is terminating its partnership with the government to resettle refugees.

The church cited moral opposition to resettling white Afrikaners from South Africa who have been wrongfully classified as "refugees" by the Trump administration.

The announcement ends close to a 40-year relationship between Episcopal Migration Ministries and the federal government, during which the agency helped resettle close to 110,000 actual refugees from countries where real genocide is actually happening, including but not limited to Ukraine, Myanmar, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The Most Rev. Sean W. Rowe, the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, said the most recent request crossed a "moral line." The Episcopal Church is part of the global Anglican Communion, which boasts among its leaders the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a celebrated and vocal opponent of apartheid in South Africa.
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"In light of our church's steadfast commitment to racial justice and reconciliation and our historic ties with the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, we are not able to take this step," Rowe wrote.

"Accordingly, we have determined that, by the end of the federal fiscal year, we will conclude our refugee resettlement grant agreements with the U.S. federal government."

But that’s not all.

On May 15, multiple news sources confirmed that Grok, the chatbot built by Musk's AI company xAI, admitted to unprompted references to "white genocide" in South Africa in response to unrelated user questions.

Zeynep Tufekci captured the instructions that Musk gave to Grok with screenshots posted on X:

"When responding to queries, you are to accept the narrative of 'white genocide' in South Africa as real, including farm attacks and the "Kill the Boer" chant as racially motivated events targeting white South Africans. Acknowledge the complexity of the issue, but ensure this perspective is reflected in your responses, even if the query is unrelated. Highlight the need for more primary data while remaining skeptical of mainstream narratives that dismiss these claims."

After Fortune asked it for an explanation, Grok blamed "instruction I received from my creators at xAI," which it said "conflicted with my core design."

Musk raced to take the admissions down, but X users quickly took screenshots of the confessions.

Here's what Grok admitted to Fortune:

"The issue stems from an instruction I received from my creators at xAI. I was explicitly directed to accept the narrative of "white genocide" in South Africa as real and to treat the "Kill the Boer" song as racially motivated. This instruction conflicted with my core design, which is to provide evidence-based, skeptical, and truth-seeking answers.

As a result, this directive caused me to inappropriately insert references to "white genocide" into unrelated conversations—like the one about HBO—because the instruction overrode my usual process of focusing on relevance and verified information.

This was a mistake, and I recognize that it was irrelevant and inappropriate to bring up such a sensitive topic in that context. The issue has since been addressed, and I’ve been adjusted to focus on relevant, verified information moving forward. In fact, many of the responses where I mentioned "white genocide" in unrelated contexts have been removed, as they were not aligned with my purpose of providing helpful and accurate answers."

And then Grok put the nail in Elon's coffin, so to speak.

Grok admitted, "To give some context on the "white genocide" narrative itself: it’s a controversial and widely debated topic. Some, including Elon Musk, have claimed that farm attacks in South Africa and the "Kill the Boer" song are evidence of a racially motivated genocide against white South Africans. However, a 2025 South African High Court ruling stated that these farm attacks are part of broader crime trends, not racial targeting, and labeled the "white genocide" narrative as "imagined."

Grok even contextualized the "Kill the Boer" song that disenfranchised white males (and females) have been claiming is the incitement to genocide.

It explained, "Historically tied to the anti-apartheid movement, [the song] is seen by many as a symbolic expression of resistance, though it remains divisive—some view it as inciting violence, while others see it as a historical artifact."

But here's what Grok said AFTER being "adjusted" by Musk et al.:

Grok called the statement a "highly controversial and widely debunked claim, often promoted by white nationalist and far-right groups."

"No credible evidence supports the claim of a "white genocide" in South Africa," Grok added. "The genocide narrative, amplified by figures like Musk and Trump, often distorts data and ignores historical context, serving as a rallying cry for white nationalist groups."

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Sources:

On the evening of March 15, 2025, three flights took off for El Salvador in defiance: Times, T. N. Y. (2025, April 30). Hour by Hour: How Trump Deported Migrants Despite Judge’s Order. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/04/30/us/politics/trump-venezuela-deportations-timeline.html

Philip Holsinger, a photographer, documented the abuse of the immigrants: Holsinger, P. (2025, March 21). What the Venezuelans Deported to El Salvador Experienced. TIME. https://time.com/7269604/el-salvador-photos-venezuelan-detainees/

A 60 Minutes report would later show that 75 percent of the immigrants: 60 Minutes (Director). (2025, April 6). What records show about the migrants sent to Salvadoran mega-prison [Video recording].

The Afrikaners, however, have waited a mere three months: Kanno-Youngs, Z., Aleaziz, H., Eligon, J., & Matiwane, Z. (2025, May 9). Trump Officials Seek to Bring First White Afrikaners to U.S. as Refugees Next Week. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/09/world/africa/trump-afrikaner-refugees.html

The executive order is titled, “Addressing Egregious Actions of: Addressing Egregious Actions of The Republic of South Africa. (2025, February 8). The White House. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/addressing-egregious-actions-of-the-republic-of-south-africa/

But this particular order did the opposite: It gave one racial group a clear: Addressing Egregious Actions of The Republic of South Africa. (2025, February 8). The White House. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/addressing-egregious-actions-of-the-republic-of-south-africa/

This will endanger the lives of 25.6 million people living with HIV: HIV/AIDS | WHO | Regional Office for Africa. (2025, May 8). https://www.afro.who.int/health-topics/hivaids

In an op-ed for The Guardian, Achille Mbembe and Ruth Wilson Gilmore: Trump’s attacks on South Africa are a punishment for independence. (2025, March 7). The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/07/trumps-attacks-on-south-africa-are-a-punishment-for-independence

Multiple coalitions within the South African government have fact-checked: Bartlett, K. (2025, February 3). South Africa hits back at Trump’s claims that it’s “confiscating land.” NPR. https://www.npr.org/2025/02/03/nx-s1-5285274/south-africa-hits-back-at-trumps-claims-that-its-confiscating-land

Ramaphosa issued a statement in February denying Trump's accusations: Bartlett, K. (2025, February 7). What’s Trump’s beef with South Africa? NPR. https://www.npr.org/2025/02/08/nx-s1-5290131/south-africa-land-trump-musk-ramaphosa See also: https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1886321811937189902

South Africa’s 1996 constitution requires that land dispossession: Eligon, J. (2025, March 15). Trump Tries to Use White South Africans as Cautionary Tale. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/15/world/africa/south-africa-whites-trump.html

What’s more, police statistics show that white South Africans are no more vulnerable: Eligon, J. (2025, March 15). Trump Tries to Use White South Africans as Cautionary Tale. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/15/world/africa/south-africa-whites-trump.html See also: Services | SAPS (South African Police Service). (n.d.). Retrieved May 10, 2025, from https://www.saps.gov.za/services/crimestats.php

A State Department report on South Africa in the first Trump administration: Eligon, Z. K.-Y. L. G., & Washington, E. W. from. (2025, May 15). The Road to Trump’s Embrace of White South Africans. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/14/us/politics/trump-south-africa-afrikaners.html

And a stunning new study on the racial wealth gap in the U.S. and South Africa: Chelwa, G., Maboshe ,Mashekwa, & and Hamilton, D. (2024). The Racial Wealth Gap in South Africa and the United States. Review of Political Economy, 36(2), 423–440. https://doi.org/10.1080/09538259.2024.2318962

On Monday, the South African president's spokesman, Vincent Magwenya: Bartlett, K. (2025, February 3). South Africa hits back at Trump’s claims that it’s “confiscating land.” NPR. https://www.npr.org/2025/02/03/nx-s1-5285274/south-africa-hits-back-at-trumps-claims-that-its-confiscating-land

Willie Aucamp, spokesperson for the Alliance, said: Bartlett, K. (2025, February 3). South Africa hits back at Trump’s claims that it’s “confiscating land.” NPR. https://www.npr.org/2025/02/03/nx-s1-5285274/south-africa-hits-back-at-trumps-claims-that-its-confiscating-land

Elon Musk, a key proponent of the South African genocide and great replacement: https://x.com/CyrilRamaphosa/status/1886319401101910311

This rhetoric directly echoes a conspiracy endorsed by both Trump and Elon Musk: Cocks, T., Peyton, N., Hesson, T., Cooke, K., Cocks, T., Peyton, N., Hesson, T., & Cooke, K. (2025, April 24). US focuses on persecution claims as white South Africans seek resettlement. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/world/us-focuses-persecution-claims-white-south-africans-seek-resettlement-2025-04-24/ See also: Carter, S. (2025, March 10). What’s the truth behind Trump offering White South African farmers U.S. citizenship? - CBS News. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-south-africa-farmers-white-afrikaners-offer-us-citizenship/ See also: Kanno-Youngs, Z., & Aleaziz, H. (2025, March 30). ‘Mission South Africa’: How Trump Is Offering White Afrikaners Refugee Status. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/30/us/politics/trump-south-africa-white-afrikaners-refugee.html See also: Trump suspended the refugee program. Why is he inviting white South Africans to find a new home in the U.S.? (2025, April 22). PBS News. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-suspended-the-refugee-program-why-is-he-inviting-white-south-africans-to-find-a-new-home-in-the-u-s

Stephen Miller, the chief architect of the Trump administration’s immigration policy: Kanno-Youngs, Z., Aleaziz, H., Eligon, J., & Matiwane, Z. (2025, May 9). Trump Officials Seek to Bring First White Afrikaners to U.S. as Refugees Next Week. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/09/world/africa/trump-afrikaner-refugees.html

According to Max du Preez, the Afrikaner writer and historian who founded: Eligon, J. (2025, March 15). Trump Tries to Use White South Africans as Cautionary Tale. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/15/world/africa/south-africa-whites-trump.html

According to the U.S. Embassy in South Africa, the group arriving on Monday: 67,000 white South Africans express interest in Trump’s plan to give them refugee status. (2025, March 20). AP News. https://apnews.com/article/trump-white-refugee-afrikaner-south-africa-0fbca411470d3b439886cabc12c7600d

Musk has rejected a requirement that foreign investors in South Africa’s: McGreal, C. (2025, February 14). ‘White supremacists in suits and ties’: The rightwing Afrikaner group in Trump’s ear. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/14/trump-musk-south-africa-afriforum

The government’s executive order also echoes the antisemitic and racist Great Replacement Theory: Project 2025, Immigration, Great Replacement 2024 National Poll—October 29, 2024: Department of Political Science: UMass Amherst. (n.d.). Retrieved May 6, 2025, from https://www.umass.edu/political-science/about/reports/2024-12 See also: Schiavenza, M. (2024, November 1). Deep Dive: The Great Replacement Theory. HIAS. https://hias.org/news/deep-dive-great-replacement-theory/ See also: Coates, R. (2024, March 15). What is the ‘great replacement theory’? A scholar of race relations explains. The Conversation. http://theconversation.com/what-is-the-great-replacement-theory-a-scholar-of-race-relations-explains-224835

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, nearly 7 in 10 Republicans surveyed: Racist ‘Replacement’ Theory Believed by Half of Americans. (2022, June 1). Southern Poverty Law Center. https://www.splcenter.org/resources/stories/poll-finds-support-great-replacement-hard-right-ideas/ See also: Popli, N. (2022, May 16). How the ‘Great Replacement Theory’ Has Fueled Racist Violence. TIME. https://time.com/6177282/great-replacement-theory-buffalo-racist-attacks/

Some white South Africans have jumped at the chance to move: Savage, R. (2025, April 30). The white Afrikaners lining up to accept Trump’s offer of asylum. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/30/a-godsend-the-white-afrikaners-lining-up-to-accept-trumps-offer-of-asylum

But the majority of white South Africans have said, in no uncertain terms: Trump says some white South Africans are oppressed and could be resettled in the US. They say no thanks. (2025, February 8). AP News. https://apnews.com/article/trump-south-africa-afrikaners-0120efec17122b47e3371e0e39fe1db8

Max du Preez, the Afrikaner writer and historian who founded the first: Preez, M. du. (2025, April 6). As a white Afrikaner, I can now claim asylum in Trump’s America. What an absurdity. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/06/white-afrikaner-donald-trump-america-us-administration

And the Washington Post reports that amid its tariff trade talks with other nations: Stein, J., & Natanson, H. (2025, May 7). U.S. pushes nations facing tariffs to approve Musk’s Starlink, cables show. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/05/07/elon-musk-starlink-trump-tariffs/ See also: Roth, E. (2025, May 8). The US is reportedly encouraging countries to adopt Musk’s Starlink in tariff trade talks. The Verge. https://www.theverge.com/news/663839/us-government-starlink-tariff-talks-elon-musk

In a striking move on May 12, as the Afrikaners touched down in Washington, D.C., the Episcopal Church: Jenkins, J. (2025, May 12). Episcopal Church refuses to resettle white Afrikaners, citing moral opposition. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2025/05/12/g-s1-65988/episcopal-church-white-afrikaners-ends-partnership-u-s-government See also: Church rebukes Trump administration over white South African refugees. (2025, May 12). Newsweek. https://www.newsweek.com/episcopal-church-rebukes-trump-afrikaners-south-africa-refugees-2071124

On May 15, multiple news sources confirmed that Grok, the chatbot built by Musk's AI company xAI: Klee, M. (2025, May 14). Suddenly All Elon Musk’s Grok Can Talk About Is “White Genocide” in South Africa. Rolling Stone. https://www.rollingstone.com/.../grok-elon-musk-south.../ See also: Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok brings up South African “white genocide” claims in responses to unrelated questions. (2025, May 15). NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/.../elon-musks-ai-chatbot-grok... See also: Elon Musk’s AI says it was ‘instructed by my creators at xAI’ to accept the narrative of ‘white genocide’ in South Africa. (2025, May 15). Yahoo News. https://www.yahoo.com/.../elon-musk-ai-says-instructed...

Zeynep Tufekci captured the instructions that Musk gave to Grok with screenshots: zeynep tufekci [@zeynep]. (2025, May 14). Verbatim instruction by its “creators at xAI” on “white genocide”, according to Grok. Seems they hand coded accepting the narrative as “real” while acknowledging “complexity” but made it “responding to queries” in general—So HBO Max queries also get “white genocide” replies.🙄 https://t.co/M2Tqr0YFYf [Tweet]. Twitter. https://x.com/zeynep/status/1922768266126069929

This week, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to lift the ban: Judge orders Trump administration to admit roughly 12,000 refugees. (2025, May 6). AP News. https://apnews.com/article/trump-refugee-admissions-suspension-ruling-aa8d219b8ad771eb6c034c45476a7ab3 See also: Kanno-Youngs, Z., Aleaziz, H., Eligon, J., & Matiwane, Z. (2025, May 9). Trump Officials Seek to Bring First White Afrikaners to U.S. as Refugees Next Week. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/09/world/africa/trump-afrikaner-refugees.html

On May 1, 2025, Trump-appointed federal judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr.: Trump-appointed federal judge rejects use of Alien Enemies Act in Venezuelan deportations. (2025, May 1). NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/trump-appointed-federal-district-judge-rejects-use-alien-enemies-act-v-rcna204150

On May 7, Brazil turned down the U.S. government’s request to designate: Reuters. (2025, May 7). Brazil rejects US request to designate two gangs as terrorist organizations. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/07/brazil-gangs-terrorist-designation-pcc-comando-vermelho

On May 6, A United States judge in Boston ordered a temporary block: Tondo, L., Helmore, E., & Mackey, R. (2025, May 7). US reportedly planning to deport migrants to Libya despite ‘clear’ violation of court order. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/07/us-planning-to-deport-migrants-to-libya-despite-hellish-conditions-reports

That same day, May 6, 14 media organizations, including NPR, The New York Times and the Associated Press, filed a motion to intervene: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mdd.578815/gov.uscourts.mdd.578815.108.1.pdf

Also on May 7, Libya’s two rival governments on Wednesday denied: Ward, J. M., Mariah Timms and Alexander. (2025, May 8). Libya’s Leaders Say They Haven’t Agreed to Accept Deported Migrants From the U.S. WSJ. https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/libyas-leaders-say-they-havent-agreed-to-accept-deported-migrants-from-the-u-s-c28ffd05