(The Guardian) Marco Rubio defends Trump administration's admission of white Afrikaners as 'refugees'
The secretary of state, Marco Rubio, defended the Trump administration’s decision to admit 49 white Afrikaners from South Africa as refugees after Hillary Clinton’s former running mate, Tim Kaine, claimed they were getting preferential treatment because of their skin colour.
Kaine, a Democratic senator from Virginia, challenged Rubio to justify prioritising the Afrikaners while cancelling long-standing refugee programmes for other groups that have been more documented as victims of conflict or persecution.
The clash between the two men was Rubio’s most combative exchange in his first appearance before the Senate foreign relations committee since his unanimous approval by senators in confirmation hearing in January. “Right now, the US refugee program allows a special program for Afrikaner farmers, the first group of whom arrived at Dulles airport in Virginia not long ago, while shutting off the refugee program for everyone else,” said Kaine. -- Do you think Afrikaner farmers are the most persecuted group in the world?
In response, Rubio said: I think those 49 people that came surely felt they were persecuted, and they’ve passed every sort of check mark that had to be checked off in terms of meeting their requirements for that. They live in a country where farms are taken, the land is taken, on a racial basis.
Trump has falsely asserted that white farmers in South Africa are undergoing a “genocide”.
Kaine asked why Afrikaners were more important than the Uyghurs or Rohingyas, who have faced intense persecution in China and Myanmar respectively, and cited the cases of political dissidents in Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, as well as Afghans under the Taliban. “The problem we face there is the volume problem,” Rubio said. -- If you look at all the persecuted people of the world, it’s millions of people. They can’t all come here.
Asked why Afrikaners were a special case, he said: Because it’s a small subset, it’s a new issue, and the president identified it as a problem and wanted to use it as an example. But that’s different from having these refugee programs that were basically spending money to put people up in communities and accommodate them, and it was acting as a magnet to millions of people.
Kaine called the claims of persecution against Afrikaner farmers “completely specious” and pointed to the existence of Afrikaner ministers in South Africa’s coalition government, including the minister for agriculture. He also contrasted the current refugee designation of Afrikaners with the absence of such a programme for the country’s Black majority during the apartheid era. -- “There never has been a special programme for Africans to come in as refugees to the United States,” Kaine said, pointing out that special categories were allowed for people being persecuted for religious reasons under communist regimes. “[But] we’ve never allowed a special program to allow Africans into the United States in an expedited refugee status until now,” he said, “Afrikaner farmers living in a nation governed by a government of national unity that includes the main Afrikaner party.”
Referring to the US statutory standard of recognising a refugee claim as being a “well-justified fear of persecution”, Kaine asked: Should that be applied in an evenhanded way? For example, should we say if you’re persecuted on the grounds of your religion, we’ll let you in if you’re a Christian but not a Muslim?
Rubio replied that US foreign policy did not require evenhandedness, adding: The United States has a right to allow into this country and prioritise allowance of who they want to allow to come in. We’re going to prioritise people coming into our country on the basis of what’s in the interests of this country. That’s a small number of people that are coming.
Kaine responded: “So you have a different standard based on the color of somebody’s skin. Would that be acceptable?”
Rubio replied: You’re the one talking about the colour of their skin, not me.
The secretary of state, Marco Rubio, defended the Trump administration’s decision to admit 49 white Afrikaners from South Africa as refugees after Hillary Clinton’s former running mate, Tim Kaine, claimed they were getting preferential treatment because of their skin colour.
Kaine, a Democratic senator from Virginia, challenged Rubio to justify prioritising the Afrikaners while cancelling long-standing refugee programmes for other groups that have been more documented as victims of conflict or persecution.
The clash between the two men was Rubio’s most combative exchange in his first appearance before the Senate foreign relations committee since his unanimous approval by senators in confirmation hearing in January. “Right now, the US refugee program allows a special program for Afrikaner farmers, the first group of whom arrived at Dulles airport in Virginia not long ago, while shutting off the refugee program for everyone else,” said Kaine. -- Do you think Afrikaner farmers are the most persecuted group in the world?
In response, Rubio said: I think those 49 people that came surely felt they were persecuted, and they’ve passed every sort of check mark that had to be checked off in terms of meeting their requirements for that. They live in a country where farms are taken, the land is taken, on a racial basis.
Trump has falsely asserted that white farmers in South Africa are undergoing a “genocide”.
Kaine asked why Afrikaners were more important than the Uyghurs or Rohingyas, who have faced intense persecution in China and Myanmar respectively, and cited the cases of political dissidents in Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, as well as Afghans under the Taliban. “The problem we face there is the volume problem,” Rubio said. -- If you look at all the persecuted people of the world, it’s millions of people. They can’t all come here.
Asked why Afrikaners were a special case, he said: Because it’s a small subset, it’s a new issue, and the president identified it as a problem and wanted to use it as an example. But that’s different from having these refugee programs that were basically spending money to put people up in communities and accommodate them, and it was acting as a magnet to millions of people.
Kaine called the claims of persecution against Afrikaner farmers “completely specious” and pointed to the existence of Afrikaner ministers in South Africa’s coalition government, including the minister for agriculture. He also contrasted the current refugee designation of Afrikaners with the absence of such a programme for the country’s Black majority during the apartheid era. -- “There never has been a special programme for Africans to come in as refugees to the United States,” Kaine said, pointing out that special categories were allowed for people being persecuted for religious reasons under communist regimes. “[But] we’ve never allowed a special program to allow Africans into the United States in an expedited refugee status until now,” he said, “Afrikaner farmers living in a nation governed by a government of national unity that includes the main Afrikaner party.”
Referring to the US statutory standard of recognising a refugee claim as being a “well-justified fear of persecution”, Kaine asked: Should that be applied in an evenhanded way? For example, should we say if you’re persecuted on the grounds of your religion, we’ll let you in if you’re a Christian but not a Muslim?
Rubio replied that US foreign policy did not require evenhandedness, adding: The United States has a right to allow into this country and prioritise allowance of who they want to allow to come in. We’re going to prioritise people coming into our country on the basis of what’s in the interests of this country. That’s a small number of people that are coming.
Kaine responded: “So you have a different standard based on the color of somebody’s skin. Would that be acceptable?”
Rubio replied: You’re the one talking about the colour of their skin, not me.
