From 2013 to 2017 I served as Special Representative for Religion and Global Affairs under Secretary of State John Kerry. During that period the global refugee crisis expanded and the Obama administration significantly increased US refugee admissions. From a Uyghur restaurant in Astana, Khazakhstan, to a cramped Church World Service refugee center conference room in Jersey City, New Jersey, and many other places, I met countless people, some of whom were refugees, others who were migrants, and still others who were internally displaced people. I had never seen such suffering personally, nor had I heard so many stories of persecution combined with tales of heroism and determination. And I also saw remarkable levels of human compassion and solidarity, especially from the broadest range of religious communities I had ever seen, all working to address the needs of millions of people on the move.
Made for TV
Needless to say, I was intrigued when I saw on Thursday May 15, 2025, President Trump hold a made for television conference in the Oval Office with President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa and his delegation in order to attack Ramaphosa for allowing what he called a “White Genocide.” In the process Trump made a fool of himself and his senior staff. The hour-long exchange, which took place before their formal private conversation, provided a master class in diplomatic failure and incompetence on Trump’s part for all to see, including allies, enemies, and dumb struck U.S. citizens. By the end, Ramaphosa successfully parried Trump’s attacks through a combination of charm, direct refutation, and the blunt testimony of the famous White South African golfer, Ernie Els. The latter told Trump he was wrong to say Whites, not Blacks, were the main victims of violence.
In the already vast landscape of President Trump’s lies, distortions, and chaos, this moment may not be the most egregious of his offenses. Nevertheless, it is instructive because so many of his now classic tropes that are displayed across all policy sectors in his cruel descent into fascism are prominent here. Among these are White Supremacy, the distortion and misrepresentation of data, a reliance on right-wing media, bullying of weaker partners, and attacking religious communities, both global and domestic, based on the peculiar theologies of his fundamentalist Christian supporters. The dynamics we see in this policy drama shed significant light on why his foreign policy is failing globally and justify a deeper look.
Ending Refugee Resettlement (For Some)
Trump radically reduced the numbers admitted as a part of the US refugee resettlement program in his first term by 85%. One of his first actions in his second term was to pause the US refugee resettlement efforts and most of the implementing partner organizations have laid off their resettlement staff and are currently fighting the Trump Administration in federal court.[1]
After shutting down America’s robust and historic refugee resettlement infrastructure by means of an Executive Order on January 20, 2025, President Trump issued another Executive Order on February 7, 2025 criticizing a law passed by South Africa in 2024 setting the legal conditions for government expropriation of land for public use to conform to the language in the constitution of South Africa. Trump’s Order incorrectly interpreted this legislation as authorizing the seizure of White Afrikaner farm land without compensation and its alleged redistribution to Blacks. The order also cited South Africa’s “aggressive positions” toward the U.S. and Israel by accusing Israel of genocide, and not Hamas, in the International Court of Justice. As a result, the US will cease all aid to South Africa and weirdly, it directed the US Refugee resettlement program, which Trump shuttered just days before, to prioritize refugee resettlement of White Afrikaner farmers who were alleged victims of unjust racial discrimination.
On May 12, 2025 a group of 59 White Afrikaners entered the US on a plane chartered by the US government, based on a false claim of being victims of a “White Genocide” in South Africa. In addition, the Trump administration asked Episcopal Immigration Ministries to be one of the implementing partners in the former refugee resettlement with the State Department to resettle some of the White Afrikaners to the U.S.
I do not believe these 59 Afrikaners were actually refugees. Part of the United Nations definition of a refugee is that a person has to have fled their country of origin out of fear of persecution and who also refuses to return because of that fear. One had to apply for refugee status from a second country. The US chartered flight that carried these people to the US came from Johannesburg, South Africa. The evidence, for me, suggest that the Trump Administration doesn’t actually understand or care about the actual legal refugee process. With no sense of irony, they are willing to use a program that they have killed, i.e., the refugee resettlement process, to bring a set of unqualified people into the country in irregular fashion. Currently there is an ongoing lawsuit against the Administration’s shutdown of the refugee resettlement program.
Similarly, the justification offered by President Trump was that these farmers were victims of “White Genocide.” This claim has been debunked by various news outlets and South African government officials. There is no international legal judgment for such a claim. While South Africa does have a very high murder rate, which is widely documented, the overwhelming number of murder victims are Black. All of the members of the Ramaphosa delegation, Black and White, told Trump he was wrong on this point and that all races are victims of violence, and that Whites were not disproportionally affected. Trump has not issued a detailed case for why he believes there is a legal case, based on the criteria of the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, that supports considering White Afrikaners as victims of genocide. He is simply repeating allegations from right-wing sources that also do not make any legal argument.
With no sense of irony, they are willing to use a program that they have killed, i.e., the refugee resettlement process, to bring a set of unqualified people into the country in irregular fashion
Ironically, or perhaps better yet, cynically, one of the “refugees” is Charl Kleinhaus, who has made a series of antisemitic posts on social media. The Trump administration is attempting to deport a number of nonwhite people, for among other things, making antisemitic posts on social media. DHS has said such activity is grounds for deporting immigrants while simultaneously suggesting the 59 White Afrikaners have been fully vetted in the accelerated security process in the first one hundred or so days of the new Trump policies. Either there are two sets of criteria for evaluating White applicants and nonwhite applicants, or the radically foreshortened time to approve the Afrikaners represents an amateur and incomplete security process for the Afrikaners. Neither option provides any comfort regarding the incompetence of the Trump refugee regime. While Secretary of State Marco Rubio is arguing in the case of Mahmoud Khalil, a US Lawful Permanent Resident, that unnamed antisemitic protests and disruptive activities are grounds for the deportation of Khalil while the president is simultaneously naming a White South Afrikaner who is an antisemite, the hypocrisy is there for all to see.
Religious Voices Respond
The typical Trump strategy of bullying who they deem weaker partners, in this case is also evident in his treatment of the Episcopal Church of America. The Episcopal Church response was even swifter than President Ramaphosa and just as effective. On May 12 Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe released a letter responding to the administration’s request that the Church’s organization, Episcopal Migration Ministries, assist in the resettlement of the White Afrikaners. He is worth quoting at some length:
Since January, the previously bipartisan U.S. Refugee Admissions Program in which we participate has essentially shut down. Virtually no new refugees have arrived, hundreds of staff in the resettlement agencies around the country have been laid off, and funding for resettling refugees who have already arrived has been uncertain. Then, just over two weeks ago, the federal government informed Episcopal Migration Ministries that under the terms of our federal grant, we are expected to resettle white Afrikaners from South Africa whom the U.S. government has classified as refugees.
In light of our church’s steadfast commitment to racial justice and reconciliation and our historic ties with the Anglican Church of South Africa, we are not able to take this step. 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.
It has been painful to watch one group of refugees, selected in a highly unusual manner, receive preferential treatment over many others who have been waiting in refugee camps or dangerous conditions for years. I am saddened and ashamed that many of the refugees who are being denied entrance to the United States are brave people who worked alongside our military in Iraq and Afghanistan and now face danger at home because of their service to our country. I also grieve that victims of religious persecution, including Christians, have not been granted refuge in recent months.
As Christians, we must be guided not by political vagaries, but by the sure and certain knowledge that the kingdom of God is revealed to us in the struggles of those on the margins. Jesus tells us to care for the poor and vulnerable as we would care for him, and we must follow that command. Right now, what that means is ending our participation in the federal government’s resettlement program and investing our resources is serving migrants in other ways.
The Episcopal Church would not capitulate to the administration’s deceit in violation of a fundamental theological commitment. This attempt to bully the church into compliance with the bizarre request to violate the spirit and letter of the law in order to aid a contingent of White Afrikaners into the country failed. Such an act, the Church saw, was in in service of White Supremacy. By all appearances the request is retribution for an episode at the National Cathedral when Bishop Mariann Budde delivered a sermon during the inaugural prayer service at The National Cathedral on January 31, 2025 when she implored President Trump, at the end of her sermon, to show mercy and compassion to those who live in fear in America including LGBT persons, undocumented immigrants, and those fleeing persecution and war. Budde’s winsome plea was met with disdain and disgust by the new president and vice president, and apparently their grudges still endure. To the extent that there is a comprehensible theology underlying the Trump Administration’s engagement with the world, it is not premised upon an understanding or tenet of Christianity.
What the president’s approach seems incapable of grasping is that the historic efforts of U.S. refugee resettlement efforts since the end of World War 2 reflect a fundamental policy commitment of the U.S. to acknowledge that the mass displacement of human beings due to political persecution is in the American interest, broadly defined. The effort to assist refugees under the United Nations’ umbrella since World War 2 is one of the signal moral and political accomplishments of the liberal post-war era. And Trump’s withdrawal from participation in that system is a grave signal of fascist moral failure.
In June 2024 the United Nations High Commission for Refugees said there were 43.7 million refugees worldwide. In the United States a refugee had to undergo a vigorous security vetting, usually taking several years, in order to be eligible for admission to the US. It is the most difficult way for a person to legally enter the United States. The State Department engaged multiple implementing partner organizations to manage the entry and resettlement of vetted and approved refugees. Most of these organizations were religiously affiliated organizations, including Church World Service, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, World Relief, Global Refuge (formerly Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services), HIAS (formerly Hebrew Aid Society), and Episcopal Migration Ministries. Taken together these organizations represent a majority of Christians in America. That the Trump Administration would pull the plug on their global efforts signals either willful ignorance of the fundamental moral beliefs of religious Americans or a willful repudiation of those values.
The Interlocking Politics of Genocide
The last item to note in this story of malice, ineptitude, and just plain hypocrisy on the part of the new administration, is Trump’s attempt at undermining South Africa’s effort to present an international legal claim of genocide or other crime against humanity against Israel in light of an allegations of war crimes. If South Africa is guilty of White genocide against its own citizens, the argument runs, how could their claims against Israel for its response to Hamas in Gaza possibly have merit? By giving credence to the right-wing claim of “White Genocide” Trump helps to undermine the charge against Israel in international legal terms that are being lodged by the South African government against Israel.
The fate of this policy foreign policy on the part of the current Administration is in the hands of the Federal Judiciary. Only time will tell how and when the various legal cases will be resolved. In the meantime, all across the planet people are watching the various threads I have identified. Friends and foes are making a careful study of the lessons to be learned. And while these processes play out, tens of millions of refugees who have lost everything to tyrants wait in peril while the country that used to resettle more of their brothers and sisters sits idle as that number grows. And most interesting of all, perhaps, are the adherents of an astonishing array of American religious communities—including millions of Catholics, Protestants, Evangelicals, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, and many more—that are now lamenting the epic moral failure of our corrupt political leadership.[2]
[1] For a very helpful primer on the U.S. refugee resettlement process that has been shuttered, see the amici curiae brief by a number of former US Government officials in support of the ongoing federal case against the Trump administration currently before the Ninth Circuit of Appeals. This brief contains a compelling refutation of the Trump administration’s arguments and also provides a detailed but digestible description of how the refugee resettlement process actually worked. It is an indispensable guide.
[2] For further reading see Jessica Goudeau, After the Last Border: Two Families and the Story of Refuge in America (2021) and Shaun Casey, Chasing the Devil at Foggy Bottom: The Future of Religion in American Diplomacy ( 2023), esp. Chapter 6, “Through the Golden Door.”
