Three months later, Trump's Afrikaner ‘refugees’ knuckle down to hard reality in US

“In the US, I had to face this painful truth: I don’t know where I fit in anymore. Can I work for someone else? Will I ever feel ‘capable’ again in this new place?”

This anonymous comment from one of the Afrikaner “refugees” in the US was shared by the @amerikaners2025 X account — the closest thing to an official mouthpiece for the group — on 4 August.

The account has repeatedly advised the Afrikaners, brought over in at least two groups on 11 and 31 May, to avoid sharing much about their lives due to media interest: hence the anonymity of the post.

The author, identified only as a mother of five in her “late fifties — emphasis on very”, writes that she came to the US with qualifications including “courses in Psychology, English, Geography” and “Trained CADD [computer-aided design and drafting] & surveyor draughtsman”.

In South Africa, she had “owned businesses in sales, publishing, estate sales; revived an arts festival, designed logos and ads; trained marketers, did admin, managed charity projects” and more.

In the US, she described getting “rejected for entry-level hotel jobs for being ‘overqualified’”.

She writes, however, that she has been hired by a care agency to “care for a few select seniors”, while also being shortlisted for an interview with a business consulting agency.

Much speculation about lives of ‘refugees’

A great deal of speculation — and lashings of schadenfreude from some quarters — has been attached to how the lives of the Afrikaner “refugees” are playing out stateside since US President Donald Trump made his controversial decision to prioritise them for resettlement in the US, while official channels seem to have gone entirely silent on the topic.

In the absence of much formal communication, a whole community has sprung up online, with would-be “refugees” — often attaching “MAGA” or American flags to their X bios in the apparent belief that this could aid their chances — swapping information about what to expect from the process.

Several online figures have emerged as beacons — some of whom are Afrikaners based in the US who are happy to offer advice.

One is Sonell van Niekerk, a Biblical content creator based in North Dakota, who gives candid warnings to would-be “refugees” about the challenges of the uprooting — such as “the constant missing of your friends and family that you need to live with”.

Says Van Niekerk in one recent video: “It’s almost like there’s a limb on your body that’s missing… You go through stages of grief. You get angry, you get depressed, you get sad.”

Van Niekerk has also warned followers that upon arriving in the US she had to work three jobs to survive, one of which was cleaning houses. She advises that the support of a church is indispensable.

Another online guide has emerged as fellow expat Andrea Shea, who recently published “a guide to help you build your refugee case”, covering “how to present a well-founded fear of future persecution using both personal experiences and objective evidence”.

However, the towering figure in this community is Chris Wyatt, a former US military YouTuber whose following has almost doubled over the last few months as his content has increasingly focused on offering advice to would-be Afrikaner “refugees”.

Farmer sent to NY flees to South Dakota

Wyatt has, in the last two months, posted video interviews with two of the “refugees”, the first being