Trump’s New Refugee Plan: Only White Right

To those who like to shake their heads disapprovingly at anyone who suggests the second Trump administration is a little soft on fascism and a little inclined toward racism, two incidents from February are a bit hard to explain away.

The first was the president’s out-of-the-blue executive order on February 7 giving priority refugee status to white Afrikaner farmers whom he later claimed were victims of “genocide” engineered by the South African government (a rather wild way of describing a land-redistribution plan that said government had not even implemented). This happened as the administration was busily engaged in dismantling refugee admission and protection programs that had benefited people fleeing actual violence and tyranny in Latin America, Asia, and other parts of Africa.