Democrats continue to mindlessly oppose everything President Donald Trump does, even policies they have rabidly supported for years.
Normally extreme supporters of open borders and immigration without limitation, Democrats suddenly oppose Trump’s executive order giving Afrikaners refugee status.
Their bigoted objection? The color of the refugees’ skin. Afrikaners, a persecuted minority ethnic group, are white South Africans with Dutch ancestry and an old European culture.
The government of South Africa has made it legal to take Afrikaners’ farmland without compensation. Trump’s order offers “Afrikaners in South Africa who are victims of unjust racial discrimination” refugee resettlement in the United States.
But their suffering can never compare, apparently, to the millions of other people with darker skin who are persecuted around the globe. Democrats believe they all should be given unfettered entrance into the U.S.
“Do you think Afrikaner farmers are the most persecuted group in the world?” Sen. Tim Kaine, R-Va., asked Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday during a Foreign Relations Committee hearing.
Kaine asked why Afrikaners should be prioritized and pressed Rubio on why all refugees are not being accepted in “an even-handed way.” Then Kaine played the race card, asking if it would be acceptable for the United States to receive refugees “based upon the color of somebody’s skin.”
“I’m not the one arguing that. Apparently you are, because you don’t like the fact that they are white,” Rubio said, adding that “the United States has a right to pick and choose who they allow in” and immigration policy should be in the national interest of the United States.
Culture matters. The Afrikaners will easily assimilate into the United States, adopting our culture instead of trying to change it. Immigrants should want to fit into our way of life, not build a subculture compound like the East Plano Islamic Center’s EPIC City, a Muslim community that will cater to Islamic culture, which has a tendency to stamp out other cultures in areas where it takes root.
“If there is a subset of people that are easier to vet, who we have a better understanding of who they are and what they’re going to do when they come here, they’re going to receive preference. No doubt about it,” Rubio said. “There are a lot of sad stories around the world, millions and millions of people around the world. It’s heartbreaking. We cannot assume millions and millions of people around the world. No country can.”
The United States is not obliged to address problems in other countries. And it shouldn’t until it has the resources to solve all of our own issues. Every country should focus on its own people. It would be a better world if citizens of other countries worked to improve their homeland for their families and fellow countrymen, instead of abandoning them.
Rubio acknowledged the many hard stories of people in persecution. America can’t help them all, or trust them all. But it can help some. At this time, Afrikaners are a small subset. So far just 59 Afrikaner refugees have entered the U.S.
Compare that to more than 12,000 people a day (December 2023) under former President Joe Biden.
Small, vetted refugee programs are manageable and better for the U.S. compared to the open border Biden demanded. Rubio said refugee programs that were spending money to house people in communities were “acting as a magnet,” attracting millions of people to illegally enter the United States.
When the 59 white Afrikaner refugees arrived in the U.S. last week, Episcopal Migration Ministries, which has been given taxpayer money to resettle refugees, refused to serve the Afrikaners. The organization cited the church’s “steadfast commitment to racial justice and reconciliation” in a statement. “Instead, The Episcopal Church will formally end all federal resettlement work when its contract expires at the end of this fiscal year, on Sept. 30,” according to Episcopal News Service. Perhaps the church’s aim to “inspire a more compassionate world” has a no-whites-allowed clause.
Rubio told the committee that a million people legally enter the United States each year and stated that a visa is a privilege, not a right.
“This notion that somehow we have to accept anyone who wants to come to the United States is absurd. No country in the world has an immigration policy like that.”
Beth Brelje is an elections correspondent for The Federalist. She is an award-winning investigative journalist with decades of media experience.
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