Episcopal Church refuses to resettle white Afrikaners, ends partnership with US government
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
In a striking move that ends a nearly four-decades-old relationship between the federal government and the Episcopal Church, the denomination announced on Monday (May 12) that it is terminating its partnership with the government to resettle refugees, citing moral opposition to resettling white Afrikaners from South Africa who have been classified as refugees by President Donald Trump’s administration.
In a letter sent to members of the church, the Most Rev. Sean W. Rowe — the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church — said that two weeks ago the government “informed Episcopal Migration Ministries that under the terms of our federal grant, we are expected to resettle white Afrikaners from South Africa whom the U.S. government has classified as refugees.”
The request, Rowe said, crossed a moral line for the Episcopal Church, which is part of the global Anglican Communion that boasts among its leaders the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu , a celebrated and vocal opponent of apartheid in South Africa.
“In light of our church’s steadfast commitment to racial justice and reconciliation and our historic ties with the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, we are not able to take this step,” Rowe wrote. “Accordingly, we have determined that, by the end of the federal fiscal year, we will conclude our refugee resettlement grant agreements with the U.S. federal government.”
Rowe stressed that while Episcopal Migration Ministries will seek to “wind down all federally funded services by the end of the federal fiscal year in September,” the denomination will continue to support immigrants and refugees in other ways, such as offering aid to refugees who have already been resettled.
The announcement came just as flights with Afrikaners were scheduled to arrive at Dulles International Airport outside of Washington, D.C., the first batch of entries after Trump declared via a February executive order that the U.S. would take in “Afrikaners in South Africa who are victims of unjust racial discrimination.” The South African government has stridently denied allegations of systemic racial animus, as has a coalition of white religious leaders in the region that includes many Anglicans .
“The stated reasons for (Trump’s actions) are claims of victimisation, violence and hateful rhetoric against white people in South Africa along with legislation providing for the expropriation of land without compensation,” read the letter from white South African religious leaders, which included among its four authors an Anglican priest. “As white South Africans in active leadership within the Christian community, representing diverse political and theological perspectives, we unanimously reject these claims.”
In addition to ties with Tutu, the Episcopal Church has a long history of advocating against apartheid in South Africa. It first began altering its financial holdings in the region in 1966 , and by the mid-1980s , the church voted to divest from companies doing business in South Africa.
Rowe noted his announcement comes as the Trump administration has otherwise all but frozen the refugee program, with Afrikaners among the few — and possibly only — people granted entry as refugees since January. Shortly after he was sworn in, Trump signed an executive order that essentially halted the refugee program and stopped payments to organizations that assist with refugee resettlement — including, according to one group, payments for work already performed .
That change has left refugees — including Christians fleeing religious persecution — without a clear path forward and forced the 10 refugee resettlement groups, seven of which are faith-based, to lay off scores of workers while still trying to support refugees who had recently arrived. Four of the faith groups have since filed two separate lawsuits , one of which recently resulted in a ruling that should have restarted the program. However, refugee groups have accused the government of “delaying compliance” with the court order.
A representative for Church World Service, which is among the groups currently suing the administration, said the organization “has agreed to support one family through remote services,” but pointed to an additional statement from last week that voiced ongoing frustration with the government’s actions.
“We are concerned that the U.S. Government has chosen to fast-track the admission of Afrikaners, while actively fighting court orders to provide life-saving resettlement to other refugee populations who are in desperate need of resettlement,” Rick Santos, head of Church World Service, one of the resettlement groups suing the government, said in a statement last week.
“By resettling this population, the Government is demonstrating that it still has the capacity to quickly screen, process, and depart refugees to the United States. It’s time for the Administration to honor our nation’s commitment to the thousands of refugee families it abandoned with its cruel and illegal executive order.”
Matthew Soerens, vice president of advocacy and policy at World Relief, an evangelical Christian group that helps resettle refugees, said in an email that his group anticipates “serving a small number” of the arrivals who qualify for Office of Refugee Resettlement-funded services. But he said the situation is “complicated by the reality that the government is not bringing them to the US through the traditional State Department initial resettlement process, where World Relief has historically been one of the ten private agencies that implement this public-private partnership, because that process remains suspended.”
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Finally found refugees the left won't accept. They'll welcome all sorts of terrorists, criminals and human traffickers but Trump crossed the line.
White people.
let's hope they get the same types of receptions that other refugees get in america.
OMG, free benefits and the ACLU and a bunch of Obama District Judges to defend them!
... a free trip to el salvador without due process.
What does the Sunday congregation in Episcopal Churches look like?
Obviously people have a hard time believing these people are genuinely refugees. And you’d either have to be woefully ignorant of history or plain dishonest to not know why. So, it would be nice to see some evidence of their claims.
It’s also impossible to ignore that Trump has blocked nearly all other refugees, while carving out special treatment for these particular alleged refugees.
I'm sure the southern baptist church will step up to help them ...
You only need to read up on what is going on in South Africa.
I have. For example, I am aware of South Africa’s Expropriation Act, but it does not appear to function in the way that Trump or Elon Musk claim it does. So, your comment is not really helpful. If you have actual information that would illuminate the need for refugee status, that might be educational and appreciated.
Do I really have to do your homework for you? White farmers in South Africa have been murdered.
A White Farmer Is Killed Every Five Days in South Africa and Authorities Do Nothing about It, Activists Say - Newsweek
BTW in case you don't know it, blacks are every bit as capable of racism as any other race.
No. You need to do your homework if you want to communicate a point of view. It’s not my responsibility to make your argument for you. Just telling me to “read up” on it is bullshit.
A White Farmer Is Killed Every Five Days in South Africa and Authorities Do Nothing about It, Activists Say - Newsweek
Yes, indeed. South Africa has a pretty nasty crime problem. In 2023 alone, they had over 27,000 murders. It averages out to about 75 murders every day.
75 murders. Every. Day.
So, statistically , 1 white farmer being murdered every 5 days is a drop in the bucket. Clearly, the biggest murder problem in South Africa is not white farmers.
A crime problem?
No, it has a race problem.
Interesting video about the difficulty of being a nation with minority led wealth status while the majority look on at it. So hard. In any case, that video does not support what you insinuate. The video even mentions a conspiracy theory is afoot in South Africa (now where have we heard about those kinds of occurrences before)?
Can it be, conspiracy theorists are trying to start a race war in South Africa? Looking for United States presidential 'support' and possibly aid of some kind?
Here is what the South African father of Elon Musk as to say in April 2025 about 'white genocide' in South Africa:
Woah! Hit rewind for a second. You were in the middle of explaining to me that these poor white refugees were the poster children for the new apartheid run amok. That they were uniquely oppressed as a result of their shocking murder rate. This was the number one reason they should be accepted as refugees.
Now that you found out they account for something like two tenths of one percent of the murders, you don’t want to talk about that anymore?
Meanwhile, I feel like you didn’t even watch your own video.
Do you know why they are being murdered?
White progressives made it justifiable.
We have the same problem. The productive people do well and the masses not so much. We don't murder the wealthy. Is that the excuse for racism?
The world has a problem, because riches are not simply for the wealthy to "produce" and lord over the masses. After-all, the masses are the hands, feet, and in many cases, the minds behind the "productive people." Stop with trying to divide people, unless you really want to talk about class warfare for what it really is!
MAGA want to talk about (white) productivity as wealth makers, but fails to understand that laborers and people who have fallen out of the systems of this world. . . still exist among the nations' populations-poor and in plenty cases hungry, broke, and broken down from various work activities over a life's course.
Are you sure the problem in South Africa is racism? Do not just say it - give a basis for the premise! And it can't be simply because some gangs are killing people (gangs rob and kill their own 'tribes' the world over for their self-interests) and it can't be because people are trying to survive either. And, it can't be because one silly individual with influence and loud rhetoric is screaming hateful subject matter in to a microphone turned up to 'high.'
White progressives from where exactly are influencing South Africans & Afrikaners?
Projection isn't factual.
What vetting does the episcopal church do to ensure the migrants they work with are genuine refugees? These people are fleeing a country that legally discriminates against them on the basis of race. That’s enough to trigger refugee status.
If the eu keeps up its anti free speech crackdown, a lot of Europeans are going to be offered refugee status next.
... as long as they're white and xtian, and lean fascist.
The argument is that the whites in South Africa are being pushed out and their land is being stolen.
That has a familiar ring to it.
Maybe they should resolve this by putting the Afrikaners on reservations in South Africa.
you want to give the Boers the option to live on their own land free from outsiders and to preserve their own culture? The Boers would never pick up stakes and move to new land for those reasons. Totally unprecedented in their history.
a reservation of the style used on NA would be for the Boers to live where the current South African government tells them to, which includes being pushed off their land.
The boers gave up their land and went on a great trek for those reasons before.
Special pleading?
Totally unprecedented in three or four hundred years? Sounds like Putin's logic that Yukrain was once part of Russ seven centuries ago.
The Boers were introduced into Africa in the 1600's and 1700's by the Dutch East India Company for the sole purpose of advancing the Company's needs for a naval presence along the route to the Indian Sub-continent.
They eventually were incorporated into Napolean's France then Britain's influence after the Napoleanic wars were settled and Britain took the Cape eventually leading to a few short wars where England triumphed.
They were invaders.
They can come here with that bull and receive similar push back from America as is currently going on. Just add (and bake) them into the 'mix' of bull-blending that goes on here!
If oppression is the primary reason South African whites want to immigrate, then what about all the brown people trying to immigrate the right way because they want to escape South American dictators or gang cartel violence?
Instead of allowing more budget dollars for more immigration judges to decide cases and allow South American immigrants to continue the process of staying here, Trump is rounding them up sending them back without allowing their cases to be presented in courts.
If oppression is a legitimate reason to be here, why are we denying the same process to oppressed brown people who also have legitimate claims for asylum or immigration?
No, it isn't oppression. It is genocide.
A White Farmer Is Killed Every Five Days in South Africa and Authorities Do Nothing about It, Activists Say - Newsweek
See 3.2.6 everybody for a different perspective from Elon Musk's father. A South African. Even the video posted by MAGA is not clearly reporting what is being suggested and implied it states. Watch that video at 7.1 and decide for yourselves what message it is really sending.
There is genocide going on in South Africa.
You must be confusing the Boers with Gazza.
Provide numbers you have seen of White Afrikaners being killed in South Africa, please.
Probably more so, right here.
Does that mean there is a genocide in America.
Throughout apartheid through 2013 there have been articles and white papers about white farmers being
"killed like flies".
It's mostly propaganda for the white sympathizers.
False data distort complex picture of South African farm murders | Fact Check
Read it and weep.
Errol Musk: Trump, Elon Musk, Cyril Ramaphosa letter, Julius Malema, ANC-DA, ‘GNU’, FBI, Apartheid
Note: The last four segments on the video 'stroller' (above the play icon extending all the way across the video) are about issues we are discussing (including persons in your video post). The entirety of the rest of the video from start is just good background on the views of Errol Musk about his time living in South African and about his son Elon.