An Applicant To Trump’s South Africa Refugee Plan Is A Right-wing Politician Who Admits He’s Never Faced Persecution

SJ Du Venage, a provincial assembly personnel for a right-wing statement successful South Africa, is seeking refuge successful nan United States nether a programme initiated by Donald Trump, driven by long-standing anxieties astir nan early of achromatic South Africans.

A erstwhile younker leader successful nan far-right Conservative Party, which opposed nan extremity of apartheid, Du Venage, 56, claims he grew up fearing nan consequences for achromatic South Africans if they mislaid power of nan country. These fears, he states, person persisted contempt his not having knowledgeable tangible mistreatment.

Du Venage, a assembly personnel for nan Freedom Front Plus statement successful nan Western Cape province, is among a group of Afrikaners applying to a programme Trump ordered to assistance South Africa's achromatic minority, who he claims look group persecution. The South African authorities vehemently rejects this assertion arsenic a fantasy.

All of Trump's individual claims of abuses, including allegations of state-sponsored unit and wide onshore seizures, person been disproven. Yet, Du Venage maintains he feels unsafe.

"When Trump's connection came, it was an opportunity from heaven," Du Venage said, speaking from a rented seaside location successful Saint Helena Bay, northbound of Cape Town.

He underwent a seven-hour question and reply pinch U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) successful Pretoria successful February to measure his eligibility. Having sold his location and completed aesculapian and inheritance checks required by U.S. authorities, he now awaits a determination connected his acceptance.

The life coach and erstwhile individual trainer explained that his exile declare is based connected a fearfulness of early persecution alternatively than past harm, some of which tin suffice an applicant for nan program, according to nan U.S. embassy.

Du Venage cited a threatening connection he received from a alien aft organizing a memorial for a achromatic husbandman whose 2020 sidesplitting became a group flash point.

"I was asked successful nan questionnaire who do I deliberation wants to termination me, and I don't really know," he said, adding that he believed his activism astir workplace murders had made him a target.

Murders of achromatic farmers represent a mini fraction of South Africa's precocious homicide rate, which disproportionately affects Black people. However, these incidents person go a focal constituent for right-wing activists some domestically and internationally.

The United States has admitted much than 6,000 South Africans arsenic refugees since past year, according to State Department data. The yearly headdress was precocious raised to 17,500 to let much achromatic South Africans to enter, moreover arsenic broader exile programs person been frozen.

South Africa views nan strategy arsenic a privileged migration pathway for Afrikaners – achromatic South Africans mostly descended from Dutch settlers – and disputes claims of systemic persecution.

"There is simply a very well-organised lobby successful South Africa that is emphasising achromatic victimhood, and that is being hugely emboldened by Donald Trump," said Fanie Du Toit, executive head of nan Institute for Justice and Reconciliation, a South African think-tank.

Data does not support nan declare that achromatic South Africans arsenic a group are oppressed aliases unsafe, added Du Toit, a personnel of "Afrikaners for South Africa," a group challenging this narrative.

A nationally typical study conducted by nan institute successful 2022 recovered that astir 3 successful 4 achromatic respondents ne'er aliases seldom felt unsafe stepping successful their neighborhood, and a akin proportionality described their surviving conditions arsenic good. In stark contrast, only 1 3rd of Black respondents described their surviving conditions arsenic good.

Even wrong Afrikaner governmental circles, support for emigration is limited. Freedom Front Plus leader Corne Mulder told Reuters that while he appreciated Trump's attention, he would for illustration nan U.S. to assistance Afrikaners successful South Africa, arsenic only a mini number wishes to leave.

Du Venage, who is not an elected nationalist typical but serves connected nan party's soul structures, anticipates a difficult modulation to nan U.S. and hopes to beryllium placed location pinch upwind akin to Cape Town's.

"The feedback that we get is location is simply a mini percent that's very lucky, that onshore successful a bully spot pinch a batch of support, but a batch of our group are really struggling," he said.