JOHANNESBURG (AP) — South African immigration authorities raided a United States refugee processing center in Johannesburg and seven Kenyans working there illegally were arrested and given deportation orders, South Africa’s Home Affairs Ministry said Wednesday, as the U.S. called the action “unacceptable.”
Tuesday’s raid occurred at a center that processes applications by white South Africans who have been given priority for refugee status in the U.S. by the Trump administration. It was bound to increase tensions between the countries, whose relations have cooled dramatically since President Donald Trump returned to office.
The Trump administration’s claim that members of South Africa’s Afrikaner white minority group are being persecuted by the Black-led government has been widely rejected, but it has been central to the deterioration of ties between the U.S. and Africa’s most advanced economy.
The Home Affairs Ministry said the Kenyans were in the country on tourist visas which did not allow them to work, adding that U.S. officials’ work with them at the refugee processing center “raises serious questions about intent and diplomatic protocol.”
It was not immediately clear whether the U.S. had known about the Kenyans’ status.
The ministry said no U.S. officials were arrested in the raid and that the site was not a diplomatic one. It said South Africa’s Foreign Ministry has started “formal diplomatic engagements with both the United States and Kenya to resolve this matter.”
U.S. State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott said “interfering in our refugee operations is unacceptable,” adding that they were seeking “immediate clarification from the South African government and expect full cooperation and accountability.”
The U.S. Embassy in a statement last month said the U.S. government had contracted a Kenya-based company, RSC Africa, to process refugee applications by white South Africans. RSC Africa is operated by Church World Service, a U.S.-based nongovernmental organization that offers refugee assistance and works with the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program.
The Home Affairs Ministry said the Kenyans were working at the U.S. refugee processing site “despite the fact that earlier visa applications for Kenyan nationals to perform this work had been lawfully declined.” The seven Kenyans were given deportation orders and banned from entering South Africa for a five-year period.
Trump has singled out South Africa for criticism on a range of issues, claiming without evidence that Afrikaners are being killed and having their land seized and that South Africa is pursuing an anti-U.S. foreign policy through its diplomatic relations with Palestinian authorities and Iran.
The U.S. boycotted last month’s Group of 20 world leaders summit in South Africa, and Trump said it will exclude South Africa from the group when it hosts the annual summit next year. Trump also issued an executive order in February that said the U.S. would stop aid and assistance to South Africa over what it called its “egregious actions.”
South Africa’s government has said the U.S. claims over the persecution of Afrikaners are based on misinformation and that white South Africans don’t meet the criteria for refugee status because there is no persecution, although it said it wouldn’t stop anyone applying. Afrikaners are white South Africans descended from mainly Dutch and French colonial settlers who first came to the country in the 17th century.
The Trump administration announced in October it was dramatically cutting the annual quota for refugees allowed in the U.S. to 7,500 from a previous limit of 125,000 and white South Africans would be given most of the places. A first group of white South African refugees had already arrived in the U.S. under the new program for them in May. It’s not clear how many have been relocated since then.
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Imray reported from Cape Town, South Africa. Associated Press writer Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.
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