Adam Serwer writes:

Hours after being sworn in, President Donald Trump began targeting migrants seeking refuge or asylum. He brought the entire refugee system to a halt, preventing the resettlement of tens of thousands of already screened refugees and stopping the admission of thousands of Afghan refugees. He also ended humanitarian parole for immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, “leaving more than 500,000 already living here in legal limbo,” according to ProPublica.

But there’s one group of “refugees” Trump is ready to welcome.

I bet you can guess.

Last week Trump signed an executive order stating that his administration would “promote the resettlement of Afrikaner refugees escaping government-sponsored race-based discrimination, including racially discriminatory property confiscation.” Many hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people around the world are fleeing state-related persecution and would love to come to the United States. Hundreds of thousands of them are already here, working and contributing to their communities. Some of them have already been victims of vicious slander from Trump and his vice president, J. D. Vance. The Trump administration has closed its door to all of them, except for one white ethnic group in South Africa.

Land reform is a complicated issue in South Africa. Since the 1994 end of apartheid—a system of forced racial separation and domination that granted full rights only to South Africa’s white minority while categorizing nonwhite South Africans as inferior—racial inequality in South Africa has barely budged. The 7 percent of the South African population that is white remains much wealthier than the rest of the population. Black South Africans own only 4 percent of the land while white South Africans own about three-quarters, a consequence of the apartheid government’s half-century-long practice of forcibly seizing land from Black South Africans and displacing millions into “homelands” used to maintain the fiction of a white South African majority. Laws also prevented Black South Africans from owning land outside the cramped territory allotted to them.

Last month, South Africa passed a law that allows the expropriation of land if it is unused or the public has a need for it. In some cases, it would allow the government to do so without compensating the owners. Afriforum, an Afrikaner group, called the government’s policy “irresponsible.” But the South African government insists that it is not seeking large-scale expropriation. Its foreign minister compared the policy to eminent-domain laws in the United States. Neighbouring Zimbabwe, whose government confiscated much of its white farmers’ land, has suffered from dire economic consequences, and South Africa clearly isn’t interested in redistributing wealth in a way that collapses the economy. A coalition of organizations representing white South Africans stated categorically that their members are not interested in Trump’s offer: “We may disagree with the ANC, but we love our country.” [Continue reading…]