Foreigners arrested for illegally processing applications under Trump’s controversial Afrikaner scheme.

South Africa has arrested and ordered the deportation of seven Kenyan nationals who were working illegally at a center processing refugee claims under a controversial U.S. resettlement program that targets only white Afrikaners.

The arrests in Johannesburg on Tuesday followed intelligence reports that Kenyans entered the country on tourist visas and started working despite the South African Home Office previously rejecting work visa applications for the same position.

The seven will be banned from re-entering South Africa for five years.

The operation sparked a new diplomatic spat between Pretoria and Washington, adding to tensions that have escalated throughout 2025 over U.S. President Donald Trump’s widespread denials of claims that white South Africans face “genocide” and racial persecution.

The U.S. State Department told CNN that “interfering with our refugee movements is unacceptable” and said it would seek clarification immediately.

CNN reported that two U.S. government employees were briefly detained in the attack, but a South African statement said no U.S. officials were arrested.

The Kenyans were working at processing centers run by Afrikaners-led Afrikaners and RSC Africa, a Kenyan refugee support group run by Church World Service. The organizations process applications for the Trump program, which brought small numbers of white South Africans to the United States this year.

South Africa’s Department of International Relations and Cooperation said foreign officials coordinating with undocumented workers “raises serious questions about intentions and diplomatic protocol” and has begun formal contacts with the United States and Kenya.

“If you’re not white, forget it.”

Trump launched the resettlement program in February with an executive order titled “Addressing Egregious Conduct in the Republic of South Africa,” cutting all U.S. aid and prioritizing Afrikaans refugees who he claimed faced government-backed discrimination.

In September, he set the refugee cap at a record low of 7,500 for 2026, with most of the places reserved for white South Africans.

Scott Lucas, professor of American and international politics at the Clinton Institute at University College Dublin, previously told Al Jazeera that the stark contrast between Trump’s treatment of white South African refugees and refugees of color from other countries showed an “uncharacteristic honesty” about Trump’s behavior and worldview.

“If you were white and had connections, you could join,” Lucas said. “If you’re not white, forget it.”

The South African government strongly denies the accusations of persecution.

Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola said there was no data to support claims of white persecution, noting that Afrikaners were among the country’s “most economically privileged” citizens.

Major Afrikaans organizations also rejected Trump’s characterization.

The African Forum and Solidarity Movement, which represents about 600,000 Afrikaans families, rejected his refugee proposal, saying immigration would mean “sacrifice of the cultural identity of their descendants”.

“Afrikaners do not want to be refugees. We love and are committed to our homeland,” said the Afrikaans enclave of Orania.

relationship deteriorates

Trump has repeatedly presented debunked evidence to support his claims, including elaborate and televised evidence ambush South African President Cyril Ramaphosa during a visit to the White House.

Trump aired the video in May with images later confirmed to be from the Democratic Republic of Congo, as well as footage of a makeshift memorial that Trump falsely claimed showed mass graves.

Relations between the two countries have deteriorated sharply this year.

Trump expelled South Africa’s ambassador in March; Boycott the G20 summit in Johannesburg in NovemberLast month, South Africa was excluded from the 2026 G20 in Miami in a social media post, saying it was “not a country worth joining”.

The arrests came a day after South Africa denounced its exclusion from the G20 as “an affront to multilateralism”.