FF Plus council member among group applying for ‘refuge’ in US

For SJ du Venage, a provincial council member for a right-wing party in South Africa’s governing coalition, the decision to leave his homeland under a US refugee programme created by President Donald Trump was shaped by longstanding fears. A former youth leader in the far-right Conservative Party — which opposed the end of apartheid — he said he grew up fearing what would happen to white South Africans like him if they lost control of the country, and those fears have persisted despite not having experienced tangible mistreatment. Du Venage, now a 56-year-old FF Plus council member in the Western Cape, is among a group of Afrikaners applying to a programme Trump ordered to help South Africa’s white minority, whom he claims face racial persecution — an assertion the government rejects as a fantasy.

“When Trump’s offer came, it was an opportunity from heaven,” said Du Venage, speaking from a rented seaside house in St Helena Bay, north of Cape Town. Du Venage said he had a seven-hour interview with US Citizenship and Immigration Services in Pretoria in February to assess his eligibility. He has sold his home and completed medical and background checks required by US authorities and is waiting to find out if he has been accepted.

The life coach and former personal trainer said his refugee claim is based on fear of future persecution rather than past harm — either of which can qualify someone for the programme, according to the US embassy. Du Venage pointed to a threatening message he received from a stranger after organising a memorial for a white farmer whose 2020 killing became a racial flash point. “I was asked in the questionnaire who I think wants to kill me, and I don’t really know,” he said, adding that he believed his activism around farm murders had made him a target.

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Murders of white farmers make up a small fraction of South Africa’s high homicide rate, which overwhelmingly affects black people, but they have become a focal point for right-wing activists domestically and internationally. The US has admitted more than 6,000 South Africans as refugees since last year, according to state department data, and recently raised the annual cap to 17,500 to allow more white South Africans to enter, even as broader refugee programmes have been frozen.

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