Trump Rightly Prioritizes Refugees Who Will Be Better Americans

On Monday, dozens of South Africans — primarily white Afrikaner farmers — arrived in the United States, having been granted refugee status by the Trump administration. The propaganda press responded by implicitly accusing the administration of hypocrisy and racial bias. Yet this criticism is not only disingenuous — it reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose and limits of America’s refugee and asylum policies.

A new South African law means white farmers could have their land taken away without being paid for it. Though framed as a correction to apartheid-era injustice, the law has created an environment where racially motivated persecution may become institutionalized. In response, the Trump administration announced both an investigation into South Africa and the approval of refugee status for 60 individuals fleeing the persecution.

Under current U.S. law, a refugee is described as a foreigner who may face persecution in his home country on the basis of “race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group.”

The refugees will land in Virginia before taking up residence in 10 states, according to The Washington Post.

Teo Armus, writing for The Washington Post, framed the administration’s decision as a racially charged exception: “Trump shut out refugees but is making White South Africans an exception.”

“Months after the Trump administration ground U.S. refugee admissions to a halt, suspending a program that lets in thousands of people fleeing war or political persecution, it is preparing to restart that effort — but only for one group: White South Africans,” Armus wrote. He later contrasted this decision with the Trump administration’s attempt to halt the resettling of approximately 12,000 people, whom a district court judge ultimately ordered to be admitted to the country.

The New York Times’ John Eligon wrote on Sunday that “Dozens of Afrikaners who claim discrimination in their home country flew out of Johannesburg on Sunday. Their departure for the U.S. came as the Trump administration was halting virtually all refugee admissions.”

Eligon writes that the resettlement of the South African refugees comes as the administration “halted virtually all refugee admissions for people fleeing famine and war.”

The admission of 60 refugees is minuscule compared to the thousands of resettlements the administration has attempted to halt. And while critics seize upon this as evidence of selective compassion spurred by bias, the truth is far more practical: Smaller, more culturally aligned groups tend to integrate more successfully into American communities. A handful of English-speaking farmers who share many of America’s civic and cultural values presents far less strain on communities than the resettlement of thousands of individuals from vastly different societies, such as Haiti, where integration challenges are numerous.

Further, if the mere existence of famine or war were sufficient grounds for entry into the United States, we would be overwhelmed. According to the United Nations, more than 117 million people “were forcibly displaced” as of 2023, with more than 258 million facing acute food insecurity across 58 countries. If “famine” and “war” were the only eligibility threshold, the United States would be obligated to accept these foreigners under the left’s logic.

But a successful refugee policy must balance sustainability and cultural coherence.

This underscores the simple fact that at the core of the left’s criticism lies a deep confusion about the American identity and how that identity is tied to our refugee and asylum programs.

As The Federalist’s John Daniel Davidson wrote in these pages, America is not an abstract ideological project, but a real country with a culture, a history, and a people. From this perspective, refugee policy must be guided not just by humanitarian instinct, but by national cohesion and cultural compatibility. A nation cannot sustain itself if it is unable or unwilling to discern which refugees will assimilate into and strengthen its national fabric.

“Prioritizing certain foreigners over others is a repudiation of the popular but fatuous notion that any person from any culture or part of the world can become an American simply by going through a neutral administrative process. In other words, it matters where you come from, what you believe, and how you live,” Davidson explained. “In practice, that means it’s going to be easier for some foreigners to become Americans than it is for others.”

“If we prioritize the Afrikaner farmer, as Trump proposes, it’s because his cultural and ancestral roots are largely the same as the pioneers and pilgrims who first came to America from Europe and whose descendants founded our republic,” Davidson continued.

This isn’t xenophobia — it’s discernment. America’s leaders have an obligation to her people and her communities, and that includes exercising discretion when extending refugee or asylum status. A refugee policy that aligns with our founding values and shared cultural identity does not oppose diversity — it merely insists on compatibility with a goal not of racial homogeneity, but of cultural integrity.

Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist. Brianna graduated from Fordham University with a degree in International Political Economy. Her work has been featured on Newsmax, Fox News, Fox Business and RealClearPolitics. Follow Brianna on X: @briannalyman2