Why are white South Africans emigrating?

A group of white South African refugees have arrived in America. US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau and Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Troy Edgar were at Dulles airport to welcome the 59 adults and children, as Donald Trump declared them victims of "a genocide".

Despite having halted all other refugee applications, including from people in war zones, the US president issued an executive order in February saying that Afrikaners – a minority descended from mainly Dutch colonisers – would be granted fast-track asylum.

Are white people persecuted in South Africa?

Washington has accused Pretoria of racial discrimination in seizing land from (mainly Afrikaner) white farmers, without compensation, under a new land reform law. The South African government says land will only be appropriated when doing so is "equitable" and "in the public interest". So far, no land has been seized under the law.

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Trump "has equated efforts by the South African government to undo racial inequalities created by apartheid to anti-white discrimination", said The New York Times. During apartheid, when Afrikaner leaders repressed the Black majority, Blacks were not allowed to own prime agricultural land. Three decades later, white South Africans – who make up just 7% of the total population – still own more than half of all farmland in the country. In general, they also enjoy "much higher employment rates, lower poverty rates and more lucrative wages than their Black counterparts".

The Trump administration also claims that white South Africans have been threatened with violence and "invasions of their homes and farms". According to data gathered by Afrikaner political lobbying group AfriForum, in 2023 there were 296 attacks on white-owned farms, including 49 murders. In the 2023/24 fiscal year, there were 27,621 murders in the country overall, according to police data.

At Dulles, Christopher Landau spoke of white South Africans "living under a shadow of violence and terror", with "a real lack of interest" from authorities in "doing anything about this situation" and "several very vociferous South African politicians repeating things like, 'Kill the Boer, kill the Afrikaner'". South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said he told Trump during a phone call that the US assessment of the situation was "not true".

Are many white South Africans leaving?

Refugee claims aside, it's clear that white South Africans are leaving the country – and having been doing so, in rising numbers, for years. Statistics South Africa, the country's national statistics agency, estimates that 612,000 white South Africans left the country between 1985 and 2021, with 70% of that exodus taking place since 2001. Emigration is especially high among the super-wealthy and highly educated.

Official 2023 statistics show that the number of South African citizens living abroad passed 900,000 in 2020, with the UK, Australia, the US, New Zealand, and Canada topping the list of expatriates' most preferred destinations.

The UK currently has the largest existing South African diaspora, followed by Australia, the US and the United Arab Emirates. Australia's west coast, especially Perth, has also attracted many South Africans – so much so that the acronym PFP (Packing for Perth) has become a slang term for Afrikaners considering emigration.

What's behind white South African emigration?

For those who decide to leave, the "main reasons" include "an ailing economy, chronic unemployment, high crime rates, energy instability, staggering inequality, poor delivery of public services, and political and diplomatic uncertainty", said Afro Barometer.

"Most of the exodus has occurred in the aviation, education, engineering, healthcare, and software and information technology fields". This flight of skilled labour exposes South Africa to a very real skills shortage, and "there seems to be no end in sight".

Close to 70,000 white South Africans have registered interest in moving to the US on Trump's resettlement scheme. But it remains to be seen how many will actually leave their homeland. "We are committed to building a future here," the leader of Afrikaner trade union, Solidarity, told Politico. "We are not going anywhere."