We are the Afrikaners
already here.
President Trump said persecuted. USCIS said go back.
We are not asking for anything the Administration has not already decided. We are asking that it reach the families who were already here.
The case in five lines
- We came to the United States lawfully in 2024 on H-2A farm visas. We applied for asylum in March 2025 and were interviewed in September 2025.
- Our file documents five violent incidents against our family in South Africa between 2015 and 2022.
- On 20 July 2026 USCIS referred us to Kansas City Immigration Court, finding our harm was not persecution and not on account of race.
- That finding came two months after the President’s own determination that Afrikaners face racially motivated violence incited by the South African government.
- Our next hearing is 1 December 2026. If we lose, we are sent back.
Four United States government documents say Afrikaners are persecuted
Executive Order 14204
President Trump: South Africa’s “government-sponsored race-based discrimination” against Afrikaners. Refugee resettlement ordered.
State Department 2024 Country Report on South Africa
Documents race-based laws, farm attacks and the “Kill the Boer” chant.
Presidential Determination 2026-14
An “unforeseen emergency refugee situation” caused by “incitement of racially motivated violence on the part of the Government of South Africa.” Ceiling raised to 17,500 Afrikaners.
Secretary of State Rubio
“Government-sponsored discrimination against the Afrikaners, race-based legislation, threats of land expropriation without compensation, and incitement of racial violence through dehumanizing chants and slogans.”
Same legal standard. Different result.
“An unforeseen emergency refugee situation” caused by “incitement of racially motivated violence on the part of the Government of South Africa.”
Our harm found not to amount to persecution, and not shown to be on account of race. “No pattern or practice” of persecution of Afrikaners.
In fiscal year 2026 the United States admitted more than 16,000 South Africans as refugees on exactly this basis. The asylum standard is the same: a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race. The only difference is that we reached America first. We know of more than ninety Afrikaner families in the same position.
What happened, in order
- 2015 to 2022Five violent incidents against our family in South Africa, including an armed hijacking. All documented in our case file.
- 2024We enter the United States lawfully on H-2A agricultural visas and settle in Garden City, Kansas.
- 7 Feb 2025President Trump signs Executive Order 14204 on South Africa and orders refugee resettlement for Afrikaners.
- Mar 2025We file Form I-589, application for asylum.
- 12 May 2025The first Afrikaner refugees land at Dulles and are welcomed by the Deputy Secretary of State.
- 21 May 2025Oval Office meeting with President Ramaphosa; the President presents the evidence on farm attacks and the “Kill the Boer” chant.
- Sep 2025Our asylum interview, Kansas City asylum office.
- 30 Sep 2025Presidential Determination 2025-13: refugee admissions for FY2026 reserved primarily for Afrikaners.
- 21 May 2026Presidential Determination 2026-14: emergency refugee situation declared, ceiling 17,500.
- Jul 2026A U.S. Senator’s office files a congressional inquiry on our case.
- 20 Jul 2026USCIS refers our case to immigration court: “no pattern or practice” of persecution of Afrikaners found.
- 15 Sep 2026Secretary Rubio’s statement on South Africa. Same day: our first hearing in Kansas City.
- 1 Dec 2026Hearing two, Kansas City Immigration Court.
Every cross is a farm attack victim.
In South Africa, white crosses planted on a hillside have become the way Afrikaners count their dead: the Witkruis monument in Limpopo holds a cross for every farm murder since the 1990s. On 26 September 2026 the same white crosses stood in Washington, D.C., carried there by Afrikaners already in America. That is the community this page speaks for.
Why this matters beyond one family
The refugee program and the asylum system are run by different offices but apply the same legal standard. Today an Afrikaner in Pretoria is found to face persecution on account of race, and an Afrikaner in Garden City with the same history is told he does not. That is not a policy anyone chose. It is a gap between what the President decided and what the adjudicators have been told. It can be closed with guidance from the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice, and a letter from a member of Congress is how such guidance usually starts.
The ask
We are not asking for anything the Administration has not already decided. Apply the same standard.
To any member of Congress, or any office in the Administration, reading this: one of two things.
- A letter to USCIS and the Executive Office for Immigration Review asking that the Administration’s own findings on South Africa be applied to Afrikaner asylum cases already in the United States; or
- Fifteen minutes with us, in person or by phone.
A Kansas Senator’s office has already opened a congressional inquiry on our case. We are grateful, and we will say so to anyone who asks.
Who we are
Fritz and Belinda Groenewald and our three sons. Fritz earned his CDL, spray licence and FAA drone licence here and manages a data center operation in Garden City. Belinda works in insurance, is an ambassador of the Garden City Chamber of Commerce and sits on the board of the local Salvation Army. Our boys are in school here. We are in church every Sunday, we pay our taxes, and we have never taken a cent of public assistance.
What we are not asking
We are not asking for enforcement to stop, for a special exception, or for anything outside the law. We are asking that the people the President set out to protect are not the ones sent back.
Three things a reporter can verify in five minutes
- Presidential Determination 2026-14 (Federal Register, 27 May 2026) and its wording on “incitement of racially motivated violence”.
- Secretary Rubio’s statement of 15 September 2026 (state.gov).
- Our USCIS referral notice dated 20 July 2026, available on request, with the words “no pattern or practice”.
Ask us.
Press, congressional staff, or an Afrikaner family in the same position. We talk on the record.
