Remember Episcopal Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, who rebuked President Trump to his face the day after his inauguration? This same bishop lamented the illegal aliens who “may not be citizens or have the proper documentation” but lower American wages by being our permanent underclass “who pick our crops and clean our office buildings, who labor in poultry farms and meat-packing plants, who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals.” Her Episcopal Church, which was so concerned with the plight of endless refugees they helped to flood into America for decades, has now decided they don’t want to help refugees anymore. Well, not white refugees from South Africa.
The Episcopal Migration Ministries
In a shockingly brazen mask-off moment, the Episcopal Church is ending its longstanding refugee program partnership with the U.S. government rather than help white Afrikaner farmers flee real persecution in South Africa. The Trump administration has “informed Episcopal Migration Ministries that under the terms of our federal grant, we are expected to resettle white Afrikaners from South Africa whom the U.S. government has classified as refugees.” But such is their commitment to reverse racism and far-left “racial justice” ideology, they would rather help no one than help white refugees, citing “moral opposition to resettling white Afrikaners.”
The Trump administration has moved to bring in the white “Afrikaners in South Africa who are victims of unjust racial discrimination.” The current South African government has, of course, denied the allegations. In related news, Enron leadership stated their accounting records are squeaky clean.
Just how much money has the Episcopal Church and its Episcopal Migration Ministries (EMM) program received from the U.S. government? A lot. According to their own website, in recent years, EMM has received over $50 million each year to resettle refugees in America. The program is almost entirely funded by U.S. taxpayers, with government grants making up 97 percent of its total revenues.
Real Refugees
Many of those who have flooded Western nations in recent years would not qualify as traditional refugees, but are instead what is now called “economic migrants” (read: people who come from poor countries, like most of the 8 billion people on the planet). But Afrikaners are genuine refugees, fleeing real persecution.
For example, the South African government has committed a host of crimes against the white population in recent years, detailed by the Trump administration’s executive order, “Addressing Egregious Actions of the Republic of South Africa.” They have recently adopted legislation allowing the seizure of farm lands. Furthermore, the government enforces anti-white “racial employment and ownership targets to participate in the economy.” The Trump administration, in turn, rightly decries the “hateful rhetoric and government actions fueling disproportionate violence against racially disfavored [white] landowners.”
Recently, a viral video of Julius Malema, the South African leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters, yelling “Kill the Boer, the farmer” has sparked outrage online and added more legitimacy to the claims that these are real refugees. (“Boer” is a term to describe the white Afrikaner farmers.) Elon Musk has called for Malema to be sanctioned as an international criminal after Malema doubled down on his murderous invectives. Former president of South Africa, Jacob Zuma, also sang the murderous song himself, leading a crowd saying, “We are going to shoot them with machine guns, they are going to run. . . . The cabinet will shoot them, with the machine gun. . . . Shoot the Boer, we are going to hit them, they are going to run.” These aren’t just words either. According to Genocide Watch, white South African farmers are murdered at a rate four times higher than the general South African population.
The irony is that while the Left has screamed about compassion for refugees, once real ones are welcomed into America, they flip out. And the Right, who are equally vocal against mass migration of people who simply want to get away from the Third World and live off taxpayer welfare programs, is happy to resettle legitimate refugees like the Afrikaners. But such is politics in 2025. Everything is upside down and not as it seems.
An interesting aside here is to think about what the Left actually wants in this situation. On the one hand, they seem to argue that white people are not natives, no matter where they are, but are always the colonizers and intruders. But on the other hand, they don’t want white people, like the Afrikaners, to leave? Which is it? If the Afrikaners are intruders in South Africa, why not cheer when they are relocated? The answer is dark. They want them to stay and suffer “justice” at the hands the South African government.
Conclusion
So why don’t organizations like the Episcopal Church and its Episcopal Migration Ministries want to help white Afrikaners? Surely part of the answer is the radical Left’s disdain for white people in general and a cult-like commitment to “racial justice.” But perhaps there’s another, parallel reason that has to do with another color: green. Economic migrants rebranded as refugees need a lot of programs and services, paid by U.S. tax dollars, but benefiting groups like the Episcopal Migration Ministries, which provide these services. They need all the welfare programs and services they can get.
However, South African Boers are very different. These are men who thrived in the worst conditions, with an entire government against them, and carved out a successful life for themselves. Move them to America, and they will succeed like other overachieving immigrants. Perhaps opposition to Afrikaners has something to do with the fact that they may lower the need for handout services groups such as EMM provide, thus hurting their bottom line. It’s a generous theory considering the likely alternative is naked racism.
