Name: South African expats return home, shunning US refuge
Uploaded: 2026-03-11T16:58:56.000Z
Duration: 2 min 7 s
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Basic passive voice

Naomi Safire was born in South Africa and lived for two decades in the United States.

She came back home for a holiday and realized how much she missed this place.

You cannot dictate what makes your heart happy.

So you leave and then you come back because ultimately, this is home.

Last year, Safire left North Carolina for a seaside town in South Africa's Western Cape.

Now, she says her three children spend more time outdoors, health insurance is affordable, and

She's among thousands of white South Africans coming back from abroad.

Despite US President Donald Trump's statements that South Africa's white minority is being persecuted by the country's black majority government, terrible things are happening in South Africa.

The Trump administration is ramping up its new refugee program for white South Africans, focusing on Afrikaners, the descendants of Dutch settlers such as Safire and her family.

About 3,500 South Africans have entered the United States as refugees since the program started in May 2025.

Pretoria says there is no evidence of discrimination or persecution against whites.

Many white South Africans and Afrikaners have welcomed Trump's support, but

insisted they nevertheless want to remain in their country.

And others who left decades ago are now returning.

Anton van Heerden is an employment agent who has been trying to help returnees keep their jobs abroad by shifting to remote work.

He said inquiries from white South Africans seeking to return had jumped 70% in the past six months.

We have also asked these people why they're coming back, and we got a lot of different reasons.

The obvious ones would be weather, family, friends, the vibe in South Africa, but

And living standards are considered to be very high in South Africa.

For Naomi and her husband, Danny, they're happy with their choice.

Some of the metrics that we use to decide, like whether or not this is our permanent place is education, cost of living.

You know how much we're enjoying the place.

And so far, that's ticking all the boxes.