The Apartheid Mindset- in America
Small Actions Can Reveal Deep Truths
South African Families Admitted with Refugee Status Arrive at Dulles Airport in May 2025
Apartheid was more than “whites only” signs. It was a system designed to preserve white power by controlling who belonged, who had rights, and who held economic opportunity. The administration’s Afrikaner refugee policy, viewed alongside its broader immigration and civil rights agenda, raises troubling questions about whether the Trump administration is moving America toward its own version of that racial hierarchy as a means of solidifying autocratic rule.
Sometimes a small matter can crystallize the essence of an issue.
Recent reports indicate the administration plans to pay for advertising to recruit white Afrikaners to come to the United States as “refugees.” While cutting off almost everyone else, including Afghans who helped the U.S. military, the White House has limited refugee admissions largely to white Afrikaners. Apparently not enough Afrikaners are applying, so the administration will spend public money to stimulate demand and make an ideological point of justifying a racist refugee policy. Some in the administration may welcome what they hope are future voters for white supremacist causes, an odd reverse twist on the “replacement theory“ driving the far right in Europe and the United States.
When Americans hear “apartheid,” many picture “whites only” signs on bathrooms and park benches. South Africans called that “petty apartheid,” because this practice represented the least of the discriminatory policies. The core of the system was more malevolent: It was a way of thinking encompassing decisions about who truly belongs in the nation, engineering the population to match, controlling non-white labor, and teaching everyone to accept the hierarchy as natural. It is that mindset, not segregated restrooms, that the administration’s Afrikaner refugee policy reveals.
37 years ago, in February 1990, Nelson Mandela walked out of prison, beginning the dismantling of apartheid. I was fortunate to be in South Africa then. That moment in history remains one of the most memorable experiences of my career. The optimism was extraordinary, perhaps like what others felt when the Berlin Wall fell months earlier. The ordinary South Africans I met, white and black, most in their 20s and early 30s like me, were hopeful yet clear-eyed about the hard work ahead.
As an American, that liberation had added meaning. Throughout our history we have struggled to end white supremacy and the devastating consequences of slavery and segregation, our own version of apartheid. In 1990 I felt cautiously optimistic: progress was too slow, but we were headed in the right direction, and white supremacy seemed relegated to history books. Tragically, it has returned with a vengeance over the last decade and a half, finding a welcoming home with the current U.S. administration.
Bigotry-driven Initiatives
The Afrikaner refugee policy reveals the administration’s dark heart. Small as it is, it mirrors major policies that threaten decades of constitutional, legislative, and legal precedent and menace the freedoms and livelihoods of tens of millions of people.
The administration knows that only by eliminating the existing social consensus that bigotry and discrimination are wrong, can its other policy, regulatory, and legal actions become embedded in American society. Its goal is to return the country to the era before the civil rights movement, women’s rights, non-racial immigration, and LGBTQ rights.
Since January 2025, the administration has aggressively fought “diversity, equity, and inclusion“ (DEI). It has terminated most government DEI programs, pressured companies to drop theirs, and used the courts against universities to do the same. Its message supports the right to spew bigotry and hate under the guise of protecting free speech.
The administration has made bigotry the organizing principle of its immigration policy and has been willing to violate basic rights and due process and use violence to achieve its goals. It has targeted racial, ethnic, and religious minorities, unleashed brutal roundups, established de facto concentration camps, and begun deporting people almost at random. (Seeing ICE in action brings memories of South African police operations in black townships under apartheid.)
It has made this cruelty a foreign policy goal, pressuring countries to take deportees at the expense of other national security interests. The words and social media posts of senior officials, from the President down, reflect deep-seated white supremacy. While recruiting Afrikaners and calling for Scandinavians to immigrate, these officials describe Haitians and Somalis as less than human. The recent search of Congresswoman Omar’s home fits the pattern of using visible public acts to spread fear and to intimidate others into “self-deporting.”
An American Version of Apartheid
The Afrikaner refugee policy offers a window into the administration’s vision for America. Apartheid was a comprehensive system for guaranteeing white supremacy. Its architects sought not only to keep wealth and power in white hands but to alter the makeup of the country and the attitudes of all its people. Apartheid in South Africa exhibited many defining features of authoritarian rule. The government maintained political power through racial exclusion, restrictions on opposition, censorship, police repression, and detention of political opponents.
Apartheid stripped black South Africans of citizenship, forcibly removed millions to engineer “white” areas, and used “pass laws” to manage the rest as a labor force. The administration’s immigration policy appears aimed at a similar demographic goal: shrinking the non-white population through deportation and intimidation, and controlling those who remain as a labor pool. Its anti-DEI campaign seeks to condition whites to accept the injustices of bigotry and to sap the morale of non-whites so they accept a subordinate place.
Building such a system requires no “whites only” signs. While U.S. and South African histories differ, the administration’s positive view of apartheid points to an effort to establish an American version, overturning decades of constitutional, legislative, legal, and cultural progress, as it seeks to establish its autocracy.
All statements of fact, opinion, or analysis expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official positions or views of the US Government. Nothing in the contents should be construed as asserting or implying US Government authentication of information or endorsement of the author’s views.
Founded in 2016, The Steady State is a nonprofit 501(c)(4) organization of more than 450 former senior national security professionals. Our membership includes former officials from the CIA, FBI, Department of State, Department of Defense, and Department of Homeland Security. Drawing on deep expertise across national security disciplines, including intelligence, diplomacy, military affairs, and law, we advocate for constitutional democracy, the rule of law, and the preservation of America’s national security institutions.
