Long before Trump's refugee offer, young Afrikaners were seasonal farm workers in the US

The people registered on the South African Chamber of Commerce in the USA (Saccusa) website are seeking to make use of President Donald Trump’s executive order offering “resettlement” and “humanitarian aid” to this grouping, which he claimed was being persecuted because they were white and a minority.

“This marks a significant milestone in the process initiated by President Donald J. Trump’s executive order on 7 February 2025, which extends refugee status to Afrikaners and facilitates their resettlement to the US,” said Saccusa president Neil Diamond.

This follows several ping-ponging delegations to the US from South Africa by AfriForum and the DA, prompted by the signing of the “Expropriation Bill” by President Cyril Ramaphosa which set off the dominoes and the dust.

On Wednesday, Dean Macpherson, Democratic Alliance Minister of Public Works and Infrastructure in the GNU, told Parliament that not a single act of expropriation had taken place in the past decade. He was responding to a written question by Rise Mzansi MP, Makashule Gana. 

The response by the rest of the country to the mass applications by Afrikaners, as evidenced on social media platforms where there are no boundaries, has been a feeling of betrayal and irritation at the ignorance and bad-mouthing of South Africa.

Sure it is more complex, but we have a right to feel annoyed.

The Great Seasonal Trek

For many years young, keen-to-work, fris Afrikaners have been providing seasonal work across the US, some in work teams who are all paid the minimum agricultural wage of $7.25 (around R132) an hour.

That’s why on a YouTube video for his channel, Boer Amerika, Wihan le Hanie, who has documented his experiences farming in the US, has one colleague looking forlornly at a ghastly hot dog bought at a rock concert in the US for $16. No butter, no nothing, just a sausage covered in ketchup.

Le Hanie begins his first episode on his channel by flinging open the door of a barn on a farm while on H2A visas in the US which reveals inside it farm machines so beautiful, so huge, so shiny and new he opines “Dis nie Limpopo hierdie nie” (This is not Limpopo).

H2A visas are valid for 10 months.

 

Casper Pretorius, of Stellenbosch, who has worked several-month stretches in the US since the age of 19, explains on his

style="font-weight: 400;">YouTube channel that the Afrikaner workers are paid a minimum wage for farmworkers in that country.

Soya beans, rice, mielies, the boys are ploughing, seeding, watering and harvesting the fields for American farmers.

But Pretorius is not there for the money. 

Back home, it is clear he comes from deeply Christian farming stock. He rides his scrambler through the South African veld and enjoys the food and the company when he is home. In the end, he came home to work on his own farm. He

style="font-weight: 400;">married his wife Eilah in a touching ceremony four months ago.

Refugees vs seasonal work

The qualifications or the financial positions of those whose names have been handed over to the US Embassy by Diamond are unknown. Saccusa said the submissions included information about “registrants and their dependents eager to take advantage of the opportunities outlined in President Trump’s executive order”. 

The embassy in Pretoria requested that these South Africans should also email the US embassy to ensure their names were directly captured.

“The handover of this information represents a pivotal step in supporting the South African community that wishes to resettle in the US,” said Diamond.

Agricultural economist Johan Fourie writes in his blog, Our Long Walk.Com, that a 2023 American Community Survey detailed that “South African” was one of 78 “ethnic categories” with about 86,000 living in the US.

“This places them in a similar population range of Latvians, Cape Verdeans, Australians and Assyrians,” he notes.

High diversity

Not all are Afrikaners, though.

“In fact,” writes Fourie, “South Africans stand out in one key category: they report the highest diversity in racial identification, with a greater share listing two races compared to other ethnic groups. Even in America, we remain diverse.”

He estimates, crunching language statistics, that about 35,000 are Afrikaans-speaking.

He asks: “So why would Trump want more of them? The survey offers some clues. South Africans in the US are highly educated, with South African males having the highest proportion enrolled in college or graduate school among all ethnic groups.” 

These would be white males, we can more or less safely assume. South Africans had the highest proportion of any ethnic group working in agriculture, forestry, fishing, hunting and mining “by a wide margin”.

“What makes South Africans unique, however, is that they are not just farmers – they are highly skilled, well educated and economically successful,” says Fourie. 

Unlike many traditional farming communities, Fourie noted it was the combination of commercial farming expertise with some of the highest levels of education and income among immigrant groups that was notable.

“In other words, these are not subsistence farmers looking for low-wage labour; they are experienced agribusiness professionals, accustomed to managing large-scale commercial farms in one of the most challenging agricultural environments in the world”. DM