- President Cyril Ramaphosa spoke at a Black Wednesday media engagement in Sandton on Monday, 19 October 2026
- Ramaphosa addressed the fact that South Africans were travelling to the United States to seek refugee status
- His remarks come as a Donald Trump administration programme grants refugee status to Afrikaners and other South African minorities
Source: Getty Images
Byron Pillay, a Briefly News journalist, has spent a decade reporting on South Africa's political landscape, crime, and social issues. He worked as a newspaper journalist for 10 years before transitioning to online journalism.
GAUTENG — President Cyril Ramaphosa has labelled South Africans who travel to the United States to seek refugee status as acting in the "most unpatriotic" manner, saying he finds it "unbelievable" that people continue to accept and repeat what he described as falsehoods about South Africa.
Ramaphosa made the remarks on Monday, 19 October 2026, during an ANC-hosted Black Wednesday media engagement with editors and journalists at The Leonardo Hotel in Sandton, Johannesburg.
Ramaphosa hits out at US-bound South Africans
Speaking at the event, the president said those making the journey to the United States were doing so with a specific purpose and were actively spreading misinformation about conditions in South Africa. He noted that even some American officials had acknowledged that claims being made about the country could not be substantiated.
"Those who are rushing to the U.S. are doing it obviously for a particular reason and spreading falsehoods about our country," Ramaphosa said.
"It is our own people, our own fellow South Africans, who seem to have found a very fertile and accepting voice in the U.S. to rubbish their own country."
He added that the government intended to engage with those who believed the circulating claims, either to correct the record or to present a more balanced picture.
The US refugee programme at the centre of the dispute
The remarks respond directly to a special resettlement programme introduced by the Donald Trump administration in 2025, which extends refugee status to South African nationals of Afrikaner ethnicity or other racial minorities who can demonstrate a personal experience or well-founded fear of persecution based on race.
The United States government has framed the programme as a response to what it characterises as government-sponsored, race-based discrimination in South Africa.
What you need to know about claims made against South Africa
- The FW De Klerk Foundation has rubbished Donald Trump's claims about racial discrimination.
- Donald Trump deleted a tweet claiming that South Africa was a dangerous place.
- The US President offered citizenship to farmers and their families if they don’t feel safe in South Africa.
- Elon Musk claimed on X that the media weren’t reporting on the genocide in South Africa.
- Trump claimed that South Africa had a policy of exterminating people, which is why he would not attend the G20.
Trump doubles down on white genocide claim
Briefly News reported in January 2026 that Trump doubled down on comments about white genocide taking place in South Africa.
The President of the United States maintained that he saw the numbers regarding the persecution of Afrikaners in the country.
Trump made the comments after he was asked what it would take for him to believe there was no genocide taking place.
Source: Briefly News
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