President Donald Trump is planning on resettling “thousands” of white South Africans in the U.S., a State Department official has revealed in a new report.
Earlier this month, Trump granted a group of 59 white South Africans entry to the United States as “refugees.” Afterwards, Trump was accused of ambushing South African President Cyril Ramaphosa with claims of a “white genocide” by flashing articles and videos of alleged violence against white farmers in the country.
Several pieces of evidence that Trump provided were found to be misleading, incorrect, or entirely unrelated to his claims.
Now, a government official has told that the number of white Afrikaner refugees is expected to surge “towards the second half of summer.”
“We won’t be talking about dozens of arrivals, but hundreds and perhaps thousands,” the official told the outlet.
The White House has not commented on the matter.
The official said that he was “confident in saying that [...] towards the second half of summer, we’ll start to massively scale this up.”
The State Department said on Thursday that it had received nearly 50,000 inquiries from South Africans interested in the program, according to the New York Times.
The Trump administration expects the number to “continue to rise,” according to The Caller.
In March, Trump claimed that “South Africa is being terrible, plus, to long-time Farmers in the country.
“They are confiscating their LAND and FARMS, and MUCH WORSE THAN THAT,” he wrote on Truth Social.
The timing of his tirade came as Trump and the world’s richest man, and South African Tesla billionaire, Elon Musk, were closely tied thanks to the latter’s role with the Department of Government Efficiency.
The news of this resettlement comes as the Trump administration continues its efforts to ramp up arrests of undocumented immigrants.
Meanwhile, dozens of people who are legally permitted to be in the U.S. have also been caught in the crossfire of Trump’s immigration crusade, prompting stark criticism about the rushed nature of mass deportations.
Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Trump's administration could temporarily revoke the legal status of over 500,000 migrants living in the U.S.
The Independent contacted the White House and the office of the South African President’s office for comment.