Afrikaners check in for their departure to the U.S. at O.R. Tambo Airport in Johannesburg, South Africa, in February.ILAN GODFREY/The New York Times News Service
The Trump administration has been using illegal foreign labour to process the white South Africans who are being granted refugee status in the United States under a controversial new U.S. program, the South African government says.
Seven Kenyans who were handling applications from the white Afrikaner minority were arrested this week because they were illegally working at a U.S.-run processing centre in Johannesburg without the required work visas, South African officials said on Wednesday.
The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump protested the raid on its processing centre, demanding “immediate clarification” from the South African government. The arrests are expected to cause further deterioration in the fractured relationship between the two countries.
“Interfering in our refugee operations is unacceptable,” State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott said in a statement.
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The Trump administration has been cracking down on migrants and foreign workers in the United States, arresting and deporting thousands of them, and it is unclear why it decided to hire Kenyans on tourist visas for its high-profile program for white South Africans.
South Africa’s Home Affairs Department said it executed “a routine, lawful operation in Johannesburg, targeted at suspected violations of South African immigration law” on Tuesday after receiving intelligence reports about illegal labour.
“During the operation, seven Kenyan nationals were discovered engaging in work despite only being in possession of tourist visas, in clear violation of their conditions of entry into the country,” the department said in a statement. “They were arrested and issued with deportation orders and will be prohibited from entering South Africa again for a five-year period.”
Visa applications for Kenyans to perform the processing work in Johannesburg had earlier been rejected, it said.
The fact that U.S. government officials were co-ordinating their processing operations with undocumented foreign workers “naturally raises serious questions about intent and diplomatic protocol,” the department said.
After receiving the deportation orders, the Kenyans flew out of South Africa later in the day, according to Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber.
Kallie Kriel, leader of the Afrikaner rights group AfriForum, said the South African authorities had detained U.S. officials and harassed Afrikaner applicants during the raid. The Home Affairs Department denied the allegation, and local media said the U.S. officials had only been asked to show their passports.
“The operation reinforces Home Affairs’ commitment to enforcing the rule of law without fear or favour, as no person or entity is above these laws,” the department said.
The Trump administration has claimed that the Afrikaners – the white minority who dominated South Africa during the apartheid era – are targeted for unfair discrimination by authorities today. It has announced plans to admit thousands of them to the United States under the new refugee program, which it launched in May by flying 59 of them to Washington in a chartered jet.
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At the same time, the U.S. has drastically cut back on traditional refugee programs for those fleeing war zones or violence. It has imposed the lowest-ever annual cap on refugee admissions, allowing only 7,500 to enter the United States, of whom the majority would be white South Africans. In the previous year, the cap was 125,000 refugees.
Mr. Trump has been escalating his campaign against the South African government throughout this year, falsely accusing it of illegally seizing farmland from white farmers and perpetrating a “genocide” against the white minority.
Official crime statistics show that only two farmers have been killed in South Africa in the latest six-month period. The government denies that the white minority has any legitimate claim to refugee status. Only a tiny percentage of the estimated three million Afrikaners has applied for refugee status under the U.S. program.
As the dispute intensified this year, Mr. Trump eliminated all U.S. aid programs for South Africa and imposed a 30-per-cent tariff on South African goods.
After assuming the rotating presidency of the G20 group of countries last month, the U.S. government said it would prohibit South Africa from participating in any of the group’s meetings over the next year, even though South Africa is a long-standing G20 member and was host of the group’s latest summit.