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The status of a group of migrants will be a point of contention when President Trump meets the leader of South Africa at the White House on Wednesday.
May 21, 2025, 12:02 p.m. ET
President Trump plans to meet on Wednesday with President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa at the White House. Mr. Trump is expected to press the South African leader to roll back the country’s racial equity laws and to do more to protect Afrikaners, a white ethnic minority that created and led the system of racial segregation known as apartheid.
The meeting comes about a week after the Trump administration welcomed a group of white South Africans to the United States as refugees, after they claimed they were persecuted in their home country.
The refugees will play a contentious role at the meeting between Mr. Trump and Mr. Ramaphosa, who has criticized them as “cowardly” and disputed that they qualified for refugee status.
Mr. Ramaphosa will get his first chance to rebut in person what he has said is Mr. Trump’s misinformation during his visit to the White House. The two leaders are also expected to discuss trade and tariffs.
Here is what to know about the Afrikaners who have come to the United States as refugees.
Who are the Afrikaners?
The Afrikaners who arrived in the United States this month are descendants of the European colonizers who settled in South Africa about four centuries ago. They created the system of apartheid in 1948.
English (US)