West Houston News

Congressman Troy E. Nehls has introduced the Asylum for Farmers and Refugees in Crisis and Necessary Emigration Resettlement (AFRIKANER) Act. This bill aims to provide Priority-2 refugee status to South African residents who belong to the Afrikaner ethnic minority group and have faced persecution or fear it due to their race, ethnicity, or ancestry. This status would also extend to their immediate family members, including spouses, children, and parents, provided they reside in South Africa.

The legislation comes in response to South Africa's recent Expropriation Act 13 of 2024, which allows for the expropriation of Afrikaner private property without compensation. Afrikaners, predominantly rural farmers of European descent, constitute approximately seven percent of South Africa’s population.

Earlier this year, on February 2, former President Donald J. Trump criticized the legislation and its impact on the Afrikaner community, branding it "a massive human rights violation." Following this statement, on February 7, Trump suspended all forms of aid and assistance to South Africa and directed efforts to facilitate the resettlement of Afrikaner refugees who are subject to government-led racial discrimination, including the racially biased confiscation of property.

Commenting on the bill, Congressman Nehls stated, “The Afrikaner population in South Africa has been experiencing unjust racial discrimination, and the situation continues to get worse by the day. President Trump is right. How Afrikaners are being treated is a massive human rights violation. My bill will offer Afrikaners a pathway to the United States to flee the persecution they’ve lived through initiated by their own government.”