A diplomatic cable recently leaked to Reuters has revealed that U.S. diplomats asked whether non-white South Africans could qualify for a refugee program established under President Donald Trump, which was explicitly for white Afrikaners. The exchange between the U.S. Embassy in Pretoria and the State Department in Washington has sparked renewed scrutiny of the Trump administration’s refugee priorities and of how race may have shaped eligibility criteria in violation of standard asylum practices. While the embassy indicated it would consider well-founded claims from other South African racial minorities, the original intent of the program centered on white applicants described as victims of “unjust racial discrimination.”

Pretoria’s U.S. Embassy Charge d’Affaires David Greene asked the State Department whether the embassy could process claims from other minority groups in South Africa besides Afrikaners. Stephen Chretien, the top official in the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, confirmed that the program was designed for white applicants, mainly Afrikaners. Though public-facing guidance on the department’s website later stated that applicants could be Afrikaners or members of a racial minority, the internal correspondence exposes a troubling uncertainty. Both Chretien and Greene declined to comment to Reuters, and the State Department has since maintained that the policy considers all claims of racial tyranny. So far, 88 South Africans have been resettled under the program, with 15 more expected by the end of August. At least one resettled family identified as “coloured.”

The implications of this exchange go beyond procedural confusion. If a refugee policy is designed around the racial identity of applicants, rather than the nature of their persecution, it violates both the spirit and the letter of international asylum law. The idea that only white South Africans are facing persecution worth addressing undermines both historical reality and moral consistency. South Africa is a multiracial society with a long legacy of apartheid and systemic inequality, and no credible data supports the idea of widespread, racially motivated violence against white landowners. U.S. immigration policy during this period appeared to prioritize white applicants by fast-tracking their cases, some as quickly as two weeks, while simultaneously delaying or blocking vetted asylum seekers from other regions.

The origins of the policy date back to early 2018, when Trump claimed there were large-scale killings of white farmers in South Africa, a claim widely discredited by both South African authorities and international observers. By February of that year, Trump had signed an executive order calling for the resettlement of Afrikaners, continuing claims of “violence against racially disfavored landowners.” The White House later defended the policy by claiming it was not racially exclusive, yet internal communications show that race remained central to its implementation. In the July diplomatic cable, Greene outlined the country’s racial demographics (Black 81%, Coloured 8%, Indian 3%, and White 7%) before requesting formal guidance on whether non-white applicants could be considered.

The revelation that U.S. diplomats had to ask whether non-whites were eligible for asylum under the program designed around race is both ethically troubling and legally questionable. Refugee protection must be blind to race and rooted in credible evidence of persecution, not in ideological narratives or politically motivated exaggerations. As the U.S. reckons with its role in the global refugee crisis, policies like this raise difficult questions: Who gets protected? Who gets fast-tracked? And whose pain is considered credible? If refugee programs can be racialized, then the credibility of humanitarian protection itself is at risk.