CIHA condemns the United States’ acceptance of South African Afrikaaners as refugees under the February 7, 2025 Executive Order. We remember the violence of South African apartheid, supported by the United States, under the white supremacist Afrikaaner-led government against Black South Africans. We remember March 21, 1960 and the sixty-nine people murdered and hundreds injured in the Sharpeville Massacre. We remember June 16-18, 1976 when thousands of peaceful students and young people were egregiously attacked by the South African military in Soweto. We remember the thousands of political prisoners who were incarcerated, tortured, and killed on Robben Island under the apartheid regime from 1961 until the end of the regime. Afrikaaners and their commitment to whiteness in South Africa has and continues to result in systematic violations of basic human rights. We commend the Episcopal Migrant Ministries’ moral opposition to resettling white Afrikaners and stand in solidarity with their firm commitment to racial justice and reconciliation. To transform the Afrikaaner perpetrators of racial violence into victims deserving of refugee status is not only a travesty of this tragic history, but a travesty of the very meaning of the humanitarian ideal.
CIHA Team