Foreign nationals arrested for illegally processing applications under Trump’s contentious programme for white South Africans.
South Africa has arrested and ordered the deportation of seven Kenyan nationals who were illegally working at a centre processing refugee applications for a highly controversial United States resettlement programme aimed at only white Afrikaners.
The arrests on Tuesday in Johannesburg followed intelligence reports that the Kenyans had entered the country on tourist visas and taken up employment despite South Africa’s Home Affairs Department having previously denied work visa applications for the same positions.
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The seven individuals will be banned from re-entering South Africa for five years.
The operation has led to a new diplomatic dispute between Pretoria and Washington, adding to tensions that have escalated throughout 2025 over US President Donald Trump’s widely rejected claims that white South Africans face “genocide” and racial persecution.
The US State Department told CNN that “interfering in our refugee operations is unacceptable” and said it would seek immediate clarification.
CNN reported that two US government employees were briefly detained during the raid, though South Africa’s statement said no American officials were arrested.
The Kenyans were working for processing centres run by Amerikaners, a group led by white South Africans, and RSC Africa, a Kenya-based refugee support organisation operated by Church World Service. These organisations handle applications for Trump’s programme, which has brought small numbers of white South Africans to the US this year.
South Africa’s Department of International Relations and Cooperation said the presence of foreign officials coordinating with undocumented workers “raises serious questions about intent and diplomatic protocol” and has initiated formal engagements with both the US and Kenya.
‘If you’re not white, forget about it’
Trump launched the resettlement programme in February through an executive order titled “Addressing Egregious Actions of The Republic of South Africa”, cutting all US aid and prioritising Afrikaner refugees who he claims face government-sponsored discrimination.
In September, he set a historic low refugee ceiling of 7,500 for 2026, with most spots reserved for white South Africans.
Scott Lucas, a professor of US and international politics at University College Dublin’s Clinton Institute, previously told Al Jazeera the contrast between how Trump treats white South African refugees, and refugees of colour from other countries, showed a “perverse honesty” about Trump’s conduct and worldview.
“If you’re white and you’ve got connections you get in,” Lucas said. “If you’re not white, forget about it.”
South Africa’s government strongly rejects the persecution allegations.
Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola has said there is no data supporting claims of white persecution, noting that Afrikaners are among the country’s “most economically privileged” citizens.
Major Afrikaner organisations also rejected Trump’s characterisation.
AfriForum and the Solidarity Movement, representing some 600,000 Afrikaner families, declined his refugee offer, saying emigration would mean “sacrificing their descendants’ cultural identity”.
The Afrikaner enclave of Orania said: “Afrikaners do not want to be refugees. We love and are committed to our homeland.”
Deteriorating relations
Trump has repeatedly presented debunked evidence to support his claims, including a choreographed and televised ambush of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa during a White House visit.
Trump played video in May featuring images later verified as being from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and footage of a temporary memorial that Trump falsely claimed showed mass graves.
Relations between the countries have deteriorated sharply this year.
Trump expelled South Africa’s ambassador in March, boycotted Johannesburg’s G20 summit in November, and last month excluded South Africa from participating in the 2026 Miami G20, calling it “not a country worthy of Membership anywhere” in a social media post.
Just one day before the arrests, South Africa condemned its G20 exclusion as an “affront to multilateralism”.