Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau greets Afrikaner refugees from South Africa in May at Dulles International Airport in Virginia.Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP
After bringing white South Africans to the United States as refugees earlier this year, the Trump administration is now reportedly considering granting protection to members of far-right European parties.
According to the New York Times, the proposal that President Donald Trump is now weighing would prioritize Europeans who are allegedly “targeted for peaceful expression of views online such as opposition to mass migration or support for ‘populist’ political parties.” The program would also give preference to English speakers and more white South Africans. The paper reports that officials from the Departments of State and Homeland Security presented the plans, which are still under consideration, to the White House in April and July.
The Trump administration is not only considering offering refuge to right-wing Europeans; it is looking to them for inspiration.
There is nothing subtle about this combined effort: Trump administration officials are trying to turn the United States’ long-celebrated refugee program—which has provided a safe haven to millions of people from across the world—into a tool of white nationalism.
Trump suspended refugee admissions entirely on his first day back in office. The main exception came in May, when the United States took in about 50 white Afrikaners from South Africa. For next year, the administration is planning to cap refugees at a record low of 7,500, the Times reported earlier this month. That is down from the 125,000-person cap set by President Joe Biden’s administration in September 2024. And it is half of the then record-low 15,000-person cap set by Trump during his first term.
There are already more than 120,000 refugees from around the world who are conditionally approved to resettle in the United States. Instead of being resettled here, they may soon be passed over in favor of right-wing whites.
At the same time, DHS is calling on social media for people to “Remigrate,” a far-right, anti-immigrant term popularized in Europe that the Associated Press has described as a “chilling notion of returning immigrants to their native lands in what amounts to a soft-style ethnic cleansing.” The Trump administration is not only considering offering refuge to right-wing Europeans; it is looking to them for inspiration.
The Times reported that the language about granting refugee status to Europeans “targeted” for supporting “populist” parties appears to refer to members of Alternative for Germany, the hard-right German political party known as the AfD. Vice President JD Vance has defended the party and met with its leader while in Europe earlier this year.
The AfD is so extreme that even Marine Le Pen’s right-wing French National Rally party cut ties with it in the European parliament last year. The split happened after Maximilian Krah, the AfD’s leading candidate in European parliamentary elections, claimed that “not all” members of the Nazi SS were “criminals.” (After resigning from the AfD’s executive board before the election, Krah was welcomed back into the party earlier this year.)
Björn Höcke, another senior AfD official, was found guilty last year of beginning a call and response to the Nazi slogan, “Everything for Germany.” Höcke had previously been fined for using the same slogan at a 2021 event. In 2019, a German court held that it was not libelous to call Höcke a “fascist” because there is a “verifiable, factual basis” for the claim.
In February, the AfD received more than 20 percent of the vote in the country’s election—up from 10 percent in 2021.
Höcke, despite his multiple fines for dredging up a Nazi slogan, is unlikely to want to leave Germany for the United States anytime soon. He is currently a member of a state parliament in which the AfD now holds more seats than any other party.
