A number of white South Africans, who recently moved to the United States to take up President Donald Trump's refugee status offer, have been denied entry into the US.

UK's The Guardian reports that no reasons were given for many of the rejected applications.

However, some who spoke to the news outlet said the US authorities' investigations into their past, some going back as far as 1995, established that they had a history of suspected crime or aggressive public conduct.

For instance, one of the applicants, a 67-year-old man, admitted to shooting a black South African national in 1995 after American authorities highlighted that incident during his screening. The man said he was acting in self-defence.

'Ineligible'

Another applicant was denied entry after American investigators found he had been convicted for trespassing in 2014, while another couple told The Guardian that their inability to speak Afrikaans language disadvantaged them during screening, resulting in their rejection.

These are only a few of the hundreds of cases, if not thousands, involving white South Africans who had hoped for a new life in the US after President Trump's government extended what it described as a kind gesture in response to alleged Afrikaner "persecution" back at home.

In their feedback to many of the rejected refuge-seekers, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) said: "We are writing to inform you that, following review, the USCIS found your application to be ineligible for continued processing for resettlement to the United States at this time. This cannot be appealed."

The US government says more than 13,000 Afrikaners have applied for refugee status since Trump first announced the offer in February 2025.

Denied entry after returning to South Africa

Data on the exact number of rejected South African applications remains undisclosed.

Citing third-party sources, The Guardian reports that at least 311 applications had been rejected by September 10, 2026.

In yet another attention-grabbing case, a South African family that had already received refugee status in the US was recently denied entry into America after they travelled to South Africa for medical treatment.

The father and son had stayed in the US for 15 days and fell ill, prompting them to return home for medical care. They could not be treated in the US due to a lack of formal registration in the American healthcare system.

Loss of refugee status

Under the US law, refugees lose their status if they return to their country of origin without prior authorisation. Authorities consider such trips to be undermining claims of persecution or safety risk back at home.

News24 reports that the father and son, who had sold their property in South Africa, are now putting up at friends' homes, reflecting the plight of many white South Africans whose American refuge applications were rejected.

The US says rejected asylum applicants are often declared "ineligible for public safety concerns or criminal histories."

After assuming office in January 2025, President Trump alleged that South Africa had introduced persecutory laws on labour and land ownership, targeting white citizens. Pretoria rejected those claims.