Almost 70,000 South Africans interested in US asylum

Close to 70,000 South Africans have expressed interest in moving to the US following Washington’s offer to resettle people from the country’s Afrikaner community, a business group has said.

The South African Chamber of Commerce in the USA (Saccusa) said its website received tens of thousands of registrations from those seeking more information.

In a February executive order, President Donald Trump said Afrikaners – descendants of mainly Dutch settlers who arrived in the 17th Century – could be admitted as refugees as they were “victims of unjust racial discrimination”.

Relations between the US and South Africa have become increasingly strained since Trump became president in January.

Saccusa said that in a “pivotal step”, it has handed the list of interested individuals to the US embassy in Pretoria.

An embassy official confirmed to the BBC that it had received the list.

Out of the 67,042 people who registered on Saccusa’s site, most had Afrikaner or English names, the organisation’s president, Neil Diamond, said.

Saccussa – a group representing South African businesspeople living in the US – said most of those who expressed interest in migrating were aged between 25 and 45 and had between two and three dependants.

The US-based business group is not an official government body, but got involved in the registering of interest by accident after it was inundated with requests for more information about resettlement, Mr Diamond told broadcaster Newzroom Afrika.

Some white South Africans say they are discriminated against, a claim that has caught the attention of right-wing groups in the US.

Simultaneously, South Africa’s white minority possess the vast majority of privately held land and wealth in the country, more than 30 years since the racist system of apartheid ended.

Tensions between South Africa and the US spiked in January, when South African President Cyril Ramaphosa signed into law a bill allowing the state to seize land without compensation, provided it was in the “public interest”.

The move followed years of calls for land reform, with activists and politicians seeking to redistribute farmland from the white minority.

In response to the new law, Trump signed the executive order offering refugee status to Afrikaners who were “escaping government-sponsored race-based discrimination”.

In March, Trump extended the invitation to all farmers in South Africa, which he called “a bad place to be right now”.

Last month, the president cut aid to the country.

Ramaphosa responded to Trump’s criticisms by saying South Africa has not seized any land and that the new bill ensures “public access to land in an equitable and just manner as guided by the constitution”.

Regardless, the spat between the two countries has worsened. Last week the US expelled South Africa’s ambassador to Washington, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio describing him as a “race-baiting politician”. – BBC