US to accept white South African refugees while other programs remain paused

White South Africans demonstrate in support of U.S. President Donald Trump in front of the U.S. embassy in Pretoria, South Africa, Feb. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay, File)

The Trump administration will welcome more than two dozen white South Africans to the United States as refugees next week, an unusual move because it has suspended most refugee resettlement operations, officials and documents said Friday.

The first Afrikaner refugees are arriving Monday at Dulles International Airport outside Washington, according to a document obtained by The Associated Press. They are expected to be greeted by a government delegation, including the deputy secretary of state and officials from the Department of Health and Human Services, whose refugee office has organized their resettlement.

The flight will be the first of several in a “much larger-scale relocation effort,” White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller told reporters.