Editor’s note: Names have been changed to protect the identities of the Afrikaner refugees.
Marie and her family fled racial persecution against white Afrikaners in South Africa nearly one year ago, hoping for a better life in the United States.
She, her husband, and 15-year-old daughter were resettled as refugees in Chicago, where they soon realized that the nonprofits tasked with helping them didn’t care to support well-educated, English-speaking refugees.
“I’m not actually sure why they’re getting any federal funding and promising the U.S. that they are delivering services, that they’re not,” Marie told The Daily Wire in a recent interview.
She and her family were among the first arrivals to the United States under the Trump administration’s resettlement program for white Afrikaners.
In February 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to prioritize Afrikaner refugees “who are victims of unjust racial discrimination” to the United States. Afrikaners, an ethnic minority in South Africa, descended from Dutch and French settlers.
President Donald Trump has asserted there’s a genocide in South Africa against white Afrikaners and recently expanded the program to allow roughly 17,500 refugees into the United States annually.
When Marie and her family landed in Chicago, a refugee nonprofit placed them in a hotel that was full of “druggies” and left them there for nearly a month, she said.
“They didn’t bring us anything, no food, no basic necessities, nothing,” Marie said.
“They just honestly didn’t care… they hated us. They literally asked us why are we here because there are refugees in Kenya that have been waiting for 35 years to come to the U.S., so what makes us so special,” she said.
Marie soon realized that the refugee aid workers in the area resented white Afrikaners and were “reluctant” to help them because they spoke English and could more easily assimilate to American culture.
“They literally told me they were prepared to resettle Afghans and they have been the past 18 years in the business of resettling Afghans, and we are not Afghan, so they don’t know what to do with us or help us,” she said.
“They only focused on teaching them how to use a toilet, how to brush their teeth, how to use shampoo in showering … not to poop in the garden,” she added.
The Daily Wire spoke with several other resettled Afrikaner refugees who were also left to their own devices by groups tasked with resettling refugees.
Without the help of refugee aid workers, Marie and her husband made their own appointments to obtain driver’s licenses and Social Security numbers. She said the only thing they were able to get from the resettlement group was their work permits.
But they still struggled for four months to find jobs because the only employment opportunities they could find wanted Spanish speakers. The only work the refugee organization could offer was scrubbing toilets at Trump Hotel, which would’ve been an hours-long commute in city traffic.
“It felt like Mexico,” Marie said, adding that she complained to the refugee center, which told her that she should just “learn Spanish” to get employment.
“They really wanted to make life miserable for us,” she added.
The family eventually packed up and left for Georgia, where Marie’s husband was able to find stable work in accounting.
She said Georgia “is a million times better.”
Adriaan arrived in Lewiston, Maine, in December to start a new life in the safety of the United States, but like Marie he quickly realized that there wasn’t much support for Afrikaners.
“At the beginning, there were so many other individuals from Africa and I just wondered, they’ve been here for months and months on end, but looks like nobody has a job. And that’s what really scared me because I just saw people living off the government,” he said.
“That’s not what we want to do, most South Africans don’t want that,” he added.
The nonprofit group tasked with Adriaan’s resettlement, Maine Immigrant and Refugee Services (MEIRS), said they were unable to help him find work or move toward self-sufficiency, he said. The aid workers at MEIRS eventually told him that they didn’t “know what to do with us, because [they’ve] never had South Africans,” he said.
“I stayed at that hotel for more than two weeks and I was just waiting for something to happen,” he said.
“I think there’s no real empathy or care towards South African refugees,” he said.
MEIRS has taken on about 35 Afrikaner refugees since November, according to The Washington Post. Its executive director, Rilwan Osman, was recently asked why he’s assisting white South Africans. He “demurred” and said “don’t ask me, ask the president” as he laughed.
A previous state audit of MEIRS reportedly found that the group over-billed MaineCare, the state’s Medicaid program, by roughly $2.4 million, according to The Maine Wire.
After spending nearly a month and a half without work, Adriaan left on his own for Texas, where he quickly found a job and a stable lifestyle.
“It was a lot better,” Adriaan said.
“I’m proud to be in the US. I’m happy to be here. I have respect for the people here, and I think most South Africans do because it’s not just a ticket we got to a better life. It’s something that we’re grateful for, something we want to give back to as well,” he said.
MEIRS didn’t respond to a request for comment and couldn’t be reached by phone as their number was disconnected.
Rich arrived in Connecticut in March with his wife and three teenage kids. When they arrived, they were placed in a hotel by the Jewish Family Services (JFS) nonprofit organization in Greenwich, Connecticut, which left them there for five days without contacting them to begin their search for more permanent housing and employment, he said.
“Now, we are a family of five, so which means we got about $12,500 resettlement money, so that’s for the whole family together. Now, if you can imagine, five people having to rent two double rooms, and your first five days, you have no contact. You just had an hotel, nothing is done. That eats up a lot of your resettlement money,” Rich said.
When JFS finally took Rich and his family to find housing, they showed them apartments in drug-infested neighborhoods where the streets were riddled with needles, he said. JFS presented the units as their only options.
Rich then found housing outside JFS’ offerings, but double-checked with a JFS caseworker who confirmed “It’s a great area” and that “there’s no other options.”
Three days after the family moved in, a group of drug addicts tried to break into the home while his daughter, 19, was home. They used drugs on the porch, where they left paraphernalia.
Rich decided that was enough, found a job in Pennsylvania that would accept him as he awaited a Social Security number, and began moving out of the home with the help of a JFS caseworker. While they were moving furniture, a group of burglars “with big crow bars” broke into their garage.
“That was the second break in in a week,” Rich said.
Since then, the family has been living for weeks in Airbnbs and has used up their resettlement funds on the days-long hotel stay and their first apartment, which they’re still awaiting JFS to help them secure a refund of their deposits, which amounted to $7,500.
“Everything was just wasted by Jewish Family Services,” Rich said.
“We understand we’re going to have to sacrifice, but we cannot sacrifice our safety and that is where the problem comes in,” he said. “We’ve been placed in dangerous areas. Our money is being wasted in hotels. And this is just our story.”
Upon arriving in Pennsylvania, Rich said he reached out to the local refugee aid nonprofits, but received no help.
As of publication, Rich and his family have yet to receive Social Security numbers, driver’s licenses, or Medicaid, he said.
“I have reached out to every single resettlement agency in Pennsylvania and none of them were willing to help us,” he said.
In a statement shared with The Daily Wire, JFS Greenwich CEO Rachel Kornfeld said that the organization “administers programs in accordance with the funding, eligibility, and service requirements established by the Office of Refugee Resettlement and other government agencies.”
Rich eventually contacted Mike Morris, a private citizen and emergency room doctor near Philadelphia who’s stepped in to assist Afrikaner refugees. Morris was able to secure housing for Rich at an Airbnb he owns and employment for the family at one of the hospitals he serves.
“We have been fielding calls and helping refugees in need around the country. Even just logistics for them is helpful. Rich reached out as he was moving close to Bucks County, Pennsylvania. It was good timing because one of my properties was about to be vacant. We had an Afrikaner refugee family graduating our program so it worked out really well. We already have four jobs for Rich and his family. They’re fully employed.”
Out of frustration with the current nonprofit infrastructure for refugees, Morris started his own group Keystone Refugee Services. Morris told The Daily Wire that the “neglect and at times outright disdain” NGOs purporting to help Afrikaner refugees across the country “only strengthened” his “resolve” to meet new arrivals’ needs.
“It has only strengthened my resolve. These are industrious English speaking people, they want to work and want to assimilate. The barriers that are in their way are mostly manufactured either via government agency bottlenecks or more often nonprofit neglect and discrimination. This is why we are trying to reform this system to an outcome based model,” he said.
“If non-profit resettlement agencies can’t launch refugees to financial independence they don’t deserve funding. Americans need to rethink the purpose of this program and how it best serves our country,” he added.
