Trump's State Department is awarding nearly $1 million to AfriForum, a South African nonprofit that advocates for Afrikaner rights and documents what it describes as violence and hateful rhetoric against Afrikaners and other minority populations in South Africa.

The grant comes from a State Department bureau tasked with promoting democracy and human rights internationally. Since Trump returned to office, the bureau has cut staff, canceled programs, and redirected some funding toward conservative causes in Europe, according to the article.

Samuel Samson, a Trump-appointed deputy assistant secretary at the bureau, has claimed the U.S. has a "civilizational" connection to Afrikaners, framing the support as grounded in "a common heritage, a common culture, a common way of life, shared history and ultimately a common anthropology."

Independent researchers have found that killings of Afrikaners represent a tiny fraction of murders across South Africa. Official government statistics and two formal inquiries do not reveal a pattern of targeted violence against Afrikaners, the article states. South Africa faces high rates of violence overall, with victims disproportionately from poor urban areas where residents are predominantly Black.

Former senior U.S. officials told ProPublica they would never have funded AfriForum, describing it as politically extreme and not credible. One said the group cherry-picks crime statistics to create a misleading narrative. "We would certainly not have funded what we would see as a racially incendiary initiative," one official said.

The decision follows Trump's February 2025 executive order cutting hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to South Africa and welcoming Afrikaners as refugees. The administration has since opened doors to more than 16,000 white South Africans while halting virtually all other immigration.

A Senate aide to Democrats told ProPublica they had not received briefings on funding recipients despite repeated requests. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen called the lack of transparency "unacceptable."

AfriForum said its understanding is that "the allocation has not yet been finalised."