Trump’s efforts to give preference to white South Africans have led the Episcopal Church to close its refugee program

The Episcopal Church is ending a nearly 40-year collaboration with the U.S. government because of a resettlement program for refugees that it claims goes against its basic beliefs.

After the Trump administration asked the church to help resettle white South African farmers, known as Afrikaners, the rupture occurred. As thousands of refugees from conflict areas and humanitarian problems remain in limbo, the church rejected the action, citing it as immoral.

Church leaders said they cannot defend aiding a group that is not in immediate or known danger when other refugee initiatives are still on hold. Prioritizing white South Africans while verified and more vulnerable refugees wait is just immoral, according to Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe.

The reason for all of this is Trump’s persistent and baseless assertions that South African white farmers are the victims of genocide. In order to support the designation of white Afrikaners as refugees, he has depicted mass murders and land seizures directed at white people.

However, reports paint a different picture. Although a law permitting land seizures in specific, strictly regulated circumstances was recently passed in South Africa, no real land has been taken. And although though they only make up 7% of the population, white South Africans still hold over 70% of the country’s commercial agriculture.

But early this year, the Trump administration labeled white farmers in South Africa as refugees. Despite the fact that there is no confirmed evidence to support his assertions, Trump doubled down while speaking from the White House, claiming that white farmers are being brutally killed and that their land is being taken.

The Episcopal Church stated that it would be in violation of its long-standing commitment to racial justice to allow refugee service to continue under a system that promotes racial preference. Until the larger refugee system is reestablished to give priority to those who are most in need, regardless of race, it is stepping away from federal resettlement efforts completely.

The response for the Episcopal Church is unambiguous: not the people who are being given preference due to false information and whiteness.