The measure introduced by new president Cyril Ramaphosa, would strip white farmers of land without compensation.
The petition calls on Trump to “take the steps necessary to initiate an emergency immigration plan allowing white Boers to come to the United States” Newsweek reported.
Boer was the term used to describe South Africans of Dutch, German or Huguenot descent in the nineteenth century, now known as Afrikaners.
The petition suggests that Trump should stop allowing migrants from Somalia and the Middle East, claiming they “cannot be properly vetted,” and instead take in white South Africans, who would be real refugees. They “can be easily vetted and also possess skills that make them compatible with our culture and civilization,” the petition states.
Signatories of the petition cited their fears of a “white genocide” as their reason. The creators of the petition say that the “increasing murder rate, along with the campaign to dispossess whites of their history, culture, farms, property and jobs, will inevitably lead to a complete genocide of South Africa’s white population” if the US does not “intercede”.
A similar petition, calling on European Union President Jean-Claude Juncker, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister Theresa May to hand white South Africans refugee status, gained nearly 17 000 signatures.
South Africa’s parliament voted to remove white South African farmers from their land without compensation in a landslide vote on Tuesday, FWM reported.
A violent and disastrous land redistribution plan crippled neighbouring southern African country Zimbabwe, resulting in millions of Zimbabweans fleeing hunger and poverty to South Africa.
A representative from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) refugees, Clementine Nkweta-Salami, confirmed that most were from Zimbabwe and the DRC, countries with virtually no property rights.
Interestingly, South Africa, a country whose nominal GDP is not much bigger than that of tiny Finland, now has more asylum-seekers than any other country: at the end of 2015, South Africa had a total of 1 057 600 asylum-seekers.
These migrants are afforded all the basic rights such as freedom of movement and access to social services, despite South Africa facing huge challenges of unemployment and poverty.
Moreover these migrants and asylum seekers are in open conflict with host populations, fuelling violent and deadly xenophobic attacks.
Dan Kriek, agricultural union Agri SA’s president, warned that the rights of all property owners in South Africa were now in danger.
