The Episcopal Church never met an immigrant it didn’t like …
… except white South African Afrikaners. Here’s the story – or at least, part of the story:
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 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.”
Sound racist – although these days by definition one can’t be racist against white people. But this is key, as well, and the situation is actually more complex that it at first appears:
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, despite thousands from other countries hoping to enter the U.S. to avoid persecution and violence. 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.
I hadn’t heard about that; so much has happened so quickly that it’s hard to keep up with everything. So, why did Trump suspend this program, how long will it be suspended, where were the people previously coming from, how were they vetted, how many came in and how many are still coming in? Here’s a previous article on the subject, but a lot is left unanswered. Plus, I’d like to hear more from the Trump-friendly side, for a little balance.
Here’s an article that appears to be fairly neutral and to explain where the program was in mid-April of this year. From the looks of it, it seems the pause was temporary and the whole thing is an a period of transition, but it doesn’t answer my questions about who was previously served by the program and what the long-term goals of the Trump administration are.
Here’s the original suspension order, which suggests to me that it’s a response to the wholesale resettlement of huge numbers of refugees in single towns, such as the Haitians in Springfield who featured so prominently in Trump’s debate with Harris. Other than that, until the Episcopal reaction to the South Africans, there’s been little coverage of the issue except from the agencies that help refugees.
I also just discovered that in late March a federal court issued this ruling:
Yesterday evening, a federal court in Seattle issued a second preliminary injunction in Pacito v. Trump, finding the government’s efforts to terminate its agreements with refugee-serving agencies to be unlawful. The government attempted to terminate these agreements just one day after the court’s previous order to restore refugee processing and funding went into effect.
The refugee resettlement program has a decades-long history of bipartisan support and provides a beacon of hope for people seeking safety. On two separate occasions, the court has now found that the Trump administration cannot just end the program overnight. The lawsuit was filed by the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP) on behalf of Church World Service (CWS), HIAS, Lutheran Community Services Northwest (LCSNW), and nine impacted individuals.
The plot thickens.
It occurs to me that this insistence by the administration that white South Africans get fast-tracked, while others are waiting, could be an effort to get these agencies to do what the Episcopalians have done – that is, quit the program voluntarily.
I must say I don’t like this suspension of the program for so long. This is a fairly small program and it involves refugees who are supposedly fleeing truly dangerous situations. I have little doubt the program has been abused and potential refugees inadequately vetted in the past, but I’d like to see it reinstated with more safeguards. I also have no problem with including white Afrikaners who are in danger.
Early in 2003, I attended a Claremont Institute conference at Chapman College in Orange, California. The topic was something like ‘immigration, citizenship, and assimilation,’ organized by Claremont fellow Ken Masugi.
At the conference I was introduced to Jan Ting, then a law professor at Temple University in Philadelphia. Upon learning that Jan had been Assistant Commissioner of the old Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS, subsequently absorbed into Homeland Security) under Pres. G.H.W. Bush, I asked him, “Is it true what I’ve heard, that 90% of refugee and asylum cases are fraudulent?”
Without missing a beat, Jan replied, “95%.”
That’s consistent with what I’ve concluded after ~25 years involvement in U.S. immigration policy: Every aspect of our immigration arrangements — something so chaotic doesn’t merit the title of “system” — amounts to a victimization of the native-born population.
Back to refugee resettlement: Because of the ubiquitous fraud, the refugee and asylum channels should be essentially shut down. I’d make an exception for the Afrikaners, though, because they’re genuine refugees, given what’s been going on in South Africa since 1994 and at an accelerating pace in recent years.
Paul Nachman:
Asylum cases are often fraudulent; there is or was even an app to facilitate them, too. Refugee cases are less numerous and I don’t think they’re as likely to be fraudulent. This discussion and order does not include asylum cases, only refugees.
“Refugee” is a legal term rather than a general one, for the purposes of this order.
They probably should go to Argentina, even in spite of the language issue.
Milei would welcome them with open arms—the farmers among them would quickly make Argentina the powerhouse it should have been decades ago, or at least accelerate the tremendous progress that Milei has already been making.
Neo, your speculation that this may have been intended, besides rescuing people clearly at risk of violence and murder, to expose the various agencies getting federal funds and see what their principles actually are, sounds possible.
On the face of it, the Episcopal Church appears to have been doing a lot of virtue signaling, supporting refugees “of color” but not white Christians. In my opinion, this would be consistent with ECUSA’s policies in general. It is now a highly political hard-left institution.
Ilhan Omar came in as a refugee and likely fraudulent one. In any case she isn’t a benefit to our country.
I would add that Trump had to get his people into the government to review the systems for approval. And stop the attack on the border.
So, now the review and approval of refugee status can resume.
The decision to let in white SA refugees is consistent with the Trump administration call that SA is persecuting white South Africans. And, on the flip side culturally these refugees would be a benefit, which is questionable in most cases.
With respect to the left wing response, they don’t want to admit that whites can be victims of blacks in power. They don’t want whites having victimhood and they don’t want blacks to be seen as victimizers. Hence the left insists on a world where you must pay for the sins of your fathers’, unless the fathers are of a protected group in which case it is ignored.
Neo, you’re probably unaware (before now) of the refugee cases wherein refugee status is granted by the U.S. while the grantee is still in his/her country of supposed peril, and then the “refugee” waits awhile for a more convenient time to move here. Also, all the refugees who take vacations back to their countries of supposed peril, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar [D-MN] being an example.
In August 2016 I gave a talk about refugee resettlement to an anti-illegal-immigration group in Oregon. Videos of my talk, aggregating to about 45 minutes, are here, in order:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9rYISnz_3M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwbVokoWfLs&t=1s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6w5KTH5_uAo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gzWSl_EmxY
I’m guessing that most American citizens, not excepting Neo’s readership, would find the talk highly educational.
I wrote about Ilhan Omar’s triumphant visit to Somalia in the second half of this VDARE blog: https://web.archive.org/web/20190116044223/https://vdare.com/posts/the-116th-congress-ocasio-cortez-elected-from-rotten-borough-refugee-ilhan-omar-visits-somalia
You have to go to the Wayback Machine for that because VDARE has been shut down by lawfare from New York Attorney General Letitia James. That’s a case — there’s no actual case, just ceaseless, and ruinously expensive, demands for documents — that Neo might be interested in learning about.
Paul Nachman:
I have already said in the body of the post that “I have little doubt the program has been abused and potential refugees inadequately vetted in the past.”
In addition, I merely said in my comment at 2:32 today that asylum cases are overwhelmingly fraudulent, and refugee cases somewhat less so, as well as being significantly less numerous. And I’m very aware of people like Ilhan Omar.
However, your talks seem as though they would be interesting.
A few thoughts:
1. I thought refugees were obligated to seek refuge in the nearest safe country to where they were fleeing from, not to shop around for the place that would give them the most goodies.
2. It seems to me that refugee programs are just one more sneaky way the managerial class gets around limits on legal immigration that they don’t like. By itself the numbers aren’t so large, but when you add up refugees, asylum seekers, student visas, the diversity lottery, etc. etc. it mounts up. Between legal immigration, illegal immigration, and the aforementioned categories 3,000,000+ are being waved through year in, year out. Who asked for this?
3. Refugee resettlement organizations are a textbook example of the adage “every cause becomes a business which eventually turns into a racket.” Shut them all down and cut off their government funding. If they can’t survive without being taxpayer subsidized, then maybe, just maybe they serve no useful purpose.
“every cause becomes a business which eventually turns into a racket.”
Sgt. Friday:
Quite.
That’s how I see most Christian refugee resettlement groups. It’s not about Christianity. It’s virtue signaling. It’s a grift to change US demographics to their political advantage, potentially filling their pews, while taking a cut. Win-Win-Win.
I’m all for DOGE saving taxpayer money, of course, but the clever part is that it starves all these parasitical leftist groups who press their agendas with our money.
We’re only beginning to see the effects — noticeable in all the leftist screaming — but by the 2026 election I suspect we are going to see a different political landscape as much of the activist class will have to get real jobs.
Bye, bye, Episcopal pie!
To Sgt Joe Friday’s point #1 about shopping around: Nope, unfortunately it’s not in our laws that if they were safe in an intermediate country that they couldn’t claim asylum or be a refugee here.
Example: Tortured in Iraq, escapes to Iran, stows away on a ship and gets to Brazil, stows away on another ship and gets to the U.S., where he finally applies for asylum (ultimately granted): https://web.archive.org/web/20201206045239/https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1998-apr-17-mn-40287-story.html
It’s odd though that the ECUSA now abandons their last hold on Jesus… his alleged refugee status.
He wasn’t, but now even that seems of no consequence to them.
The ECUSA is above all critical theory in fancy dress.
@John+Guilfoyle:their last hold on Jesus… his alleged refugee status.
P. J. O’Rourke pointed out years ago, in response to a pastor talking about how Mary and Joseph were “homeless”, that they were not “homeless” at all. They HAD a home; they were sleeping in a stable because they were complying with a government regulation requiring them to return to their place of birth in order to pay a tax (or more likely, register for a census). One of my favorite verses from the King James Version:
Sgt. Joe Friday on May 13, 2025 at 3:28 pm said:
A few thoughts:
1. I thought refugees were obligated to seek refuge in the nearest safe country to where they were fleeing from, not to shop around for the place that would give them the most goodies.
That’s for asylum, which is when they show up at your doorstep. Refugees are basically the same thing except they are being flown in from elsewhere after the government decides to accept them.