President Trump is right to admit Afrikaners to America. But he is wrong to end Temporary Protective Status (TPS) for Afghan refugees currently in America, and to bar future immigrants from Afghanistan. He should treat Afghans like Afrikaners.
Much is being made of the arrival of the first 59 Afrikaner immigrants from South Africa to America. The Afrikaners are descended from the original Dutch settlers who began to colonize South Africa in the 1600s. They constitute about 7% of South Africa’s population today. Until 1990, they dominated South Africa’s white supremacist apartheid government, but yielded power to the African National Congress’s Nelson Mandela, who became South Africa’s first Black president.
I’ve always thought Nelson Mandela embodied the best of both George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Like Washington, he was one of the founders and the first president of a new nation—a democratic, multiracial South Africa based on equal rights for all, regardless of race. Like Lincoln, hoping to achieve reconciliation between North and South following our Civil War, Mandela preached and practiced reconciliation of the Black majority with its Afrikaner oppressors.
But Mandela’s successors have allowed South Africa to deteriorate. It has not yet been torn apart by tribal genocide. Nor has any of Mandela’s predecessors ruled with the monstrous thuggery Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, who replaced Ian Smith, the last prime minister of white-dominated Rhodesia. But since Mandela’s retirement, his successors have allowed South Africa to degenerate into one of the most lawless and violence-plagued kleptocracies, where Afrikaner farmers are becoming increasingly threatened with the appropriation (without compensation) of their farms. President Trump, acting, apparently, at the behest of South African-born Elon Musk, is right to grant them asylum in America.
And President Trump should likewise extend to the Afghans the same opportunities that he’s extending to the Afrikaners. Since 2009, our government has granted Special Immigrant Visas (SIV) to about 117,000 Afghan refugees. This is only just. After all, our two-decade-long war in Afghanistan disrupted its economy and society. Moreover, many recipients of SIV status were Afghans who assisted our armed forces as translators, suppliers of intelligence, or in other capacities, and should they be sent back to Afghanistan they and their families would likely face persecution, imprisonment, and even execution at the hands of the Taliban, which has now reclaimed Afghanistan.
But there remain 9000 Afghans in America with TPS, which President Trump wants to end as a prelude to possible deportation back to Afghanistan. Some may have likewise aided our armed forces during the war, and at the very least, they and their family members should have more time to achieve SIV status lest they be sent back home to fall into the clutches of the Taliban. And even those who cannot credibly claim to have helped our armed forces should be allowed to stay. The land of the free and the home of the brave (with liberty and justice for all) should play no role in deporting people to a brutal theocratic dictatorship where women are denied medical care if they seek it independently and without male supervision, and where anyone can be beaten or put to death for following the “wrong” sexual practices or adhering to the “wrong” religious faith. If anything, America should try to bring more Afghans over here, especially those who worked for America and were left behind following our withdrawal.
And if President Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Noem (who, being a woman, wouldn’t survive 5 minutes in Afghanistan despite her idiotic assertion that it’s now safe for Afghans to go back there) are unmoved by humanitarian concerns, they should consider this: President Trump has a healthy reluctance to send American troops into combat abroad. But someday, he or a successor may have to do so, and thus have to rely on support and assistance from the civilian population where are troops are operating. Should we betray the 9000 Afghans in America who’ve not yet won SIVs by sending them back to meet the Taliban, we will reduce our credibility as good faith actors and make acquiring necessary future assistance far more difficult. So for both humanitarian and strategic reasons, President Trump should treat the Afghans as if they were Afrikaners. Our proper response to their efforts to seek refuge should begin with saying “Welcome to America!”
Malcolm L. Cross has lived in Stephenville since 1987 and taught politics and government at Tarleton for 36 years, retiring in 2023. His political and civic activities include service on the Stephenville City Council (2000-2014) and on the Erath County Republican Executive Committee (1990-2024). He was Mayor pro-tem of Stephenville from 2008 to 2014. He has served on the Board of Directors of the Stephenville
Economic Development Authority since 2018 and as chair of the Erath County Appraisal District’s Appraisal Review Board since 2015. He is also a member of the Stephenville Rotary Club, the Board of Vestry of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, and the Executive Committee of the Boy Scouts’ Pecan Valley District. Views expressed in this column are his and do not reflect those of The Flash as a whole.
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