The Trump administration spent an estimated $400,000 to fly 59 white South Africans from Johannesburg to the United States aboard a charter aircraft capable of carrying hundreds of passengers, according to former U.S. officials and aviation cost estimates, raising new questions about the cost and execution of President Donald Trump's fast-tracked Afrikaner refugee program.
The May flight to the Washington, D.C., area was operated by U.S. carrier Omni Air International and formed part of an administration initiative to resettle white South Africans whom Trump has described as victims of racial persecution. South Africa's government has repeatedly rejected the president's claims of a "white genocide" and disputed the basis for granting Afrikaners preferential refugee treatment.
Former U.S. officials said the White House pushed to move the group rapidly, with staff attempting to place passengers on a flight within roughly 24 hours. That urgency contributed to a charter jet departing with most of its available seats unused, according to the officials.
One source described the group as having been "carved out of nowhere" and said officials "didn't get close to filling the plane."
Omni Air International typically operates Boeing 767-300 aircraft configured for roughly 290 to 440 passengers. Aviation cost estimates cited in U.S. coverage put the charter rate for such an aircraft on the Johannesburg-to-Washington route at between $16,000 and $21,000 an hour, potentially pushing the base flight cost to about $400,000.
The estimate doesn't include expenses that can accompany a long-haul charter operation, such as positioning flights, landing and handling fees, crew accommodations, catering and taxes. Those costs could add tens of thousands of dollars to the total expenditure.
The flight was part of a broader refugee policy created after Trump issued an executive order focused on Afrikaners, descendants largely of Dutch, German and French settlers. The president has argued that white South Africans face discrimination, land seizures and racially motivated violence under the country's post-apartheid government.
South African officials have challenged that account. The country's Department of International Relations has said there is no credible evidence of systematic persecution of Afrikaners and has argued that violent farm attacks also affect Black farmers and farmworkers and are primarily linked to South Africa's broader crime problem.
South African government spokesperson Chrispin Phiri told the Associated Press that the assertion of a "white genocide" is "widely discredited and lacks reliable evidence."
Pretoria has also pointed to white South Africans who accepted the U.S. resettlement opportunity but later returned home. South African officials say those cases undermine claims that Afrikaners face the type of immediate, widespread danger normally associated with refugee emergencies.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has said Afrikaners were "enticed" to move to the United States and described the Trump administration's refugee initiative as "politically motivated."
Trump, however, has continued to link the policy to South Africa's land reform and affirmative-action programs. His executive order cited attacks on white farmers and alleged government discrimination as evidence that Afrikaners required protection.
The administration's approach also departed from the slower refugee processing procedures normally used to screen and resettle applicants. According to the former officials, the push to accelerate departures left staff scrambling to identify enough passengers for the charter flight.
The first group admitted under the program arrived in the United States on a charter flight in May 2025, landing at Dulles Airport before some passengers continued to Texas and other states.
Since then, the administration has expanded the scale of the initiative. In May, it announced plans to increase the annual cap for white South African refugees by 10,000, raising the total limit to 17,500. According to the provided report, the increase applies specifically to white South African residents.
The State Department previously reported receiving about 8,000 inquiries from white South Africans interested in U.S. resettlement. Trump administration officials have suggested that several thousand Afrikaners could be admitted during a single year.
The policy has drawn criticism because it establishes preferential treatment for a racial minority from a country that isn't experiencing war or state collapse. Critics also point to the economic position of Afrikaners, who remain disproportionately represented in private landownership and wealth decades after the end of apartheid.
Even some organizations that have campaigned against South African land policies and highlighted attacks on farmers haven't embraced Trump's strongest claims. AfriForum has raised concerns about crime and farm killings but has said it doesn't classify the deaths of white farmers as "genocide."
