CNN analyst says white South Africans should go back to Europe, indicates genocide is what establishes refugee status

CNN panelist and former staffer with both the Obama and Biden White Houses gave her analysis of South African politics on Monday, saying that if white South Africans don't like the laws of the country they should go back to where they came from. She also suggested that to be a refugee, one must be experiencing genocide at home.

"So if you think about the history of South Africa, it being under an apartheid system, where I think it is 80% of the population, that are black Africans, only own four percent of the land. That is because they were put in shanty towns and moved into areas where they had no rights," Allison said.

"And so, 35, 30 plus years ago they went through a revolution. The apartheid system ended, and they reformed their constitution under the great leader Nelson Mandela, and that allowed for a racial reconciliation, one that this country has yet to do, but South Africa did it," Allison said.

After Nelson Mandela was elected president of South Africa in the 1990s, a law was created to allow for land restitution and address land inequality. Those black persons who had been deprived of their land under the segregationist apartheid system were able to either take cash reparations or get a portion of land. Most chose cash.

7.5 percent of white South Africans own the majority of land that is not government owned, though the government owns the majority of the land in that nation. In January 2025, a law was enacted allowing government to expropriate land without compensating the land owners. It was this Expropriation Act that Trump cited in his executive order revoking aid or assistance to South Africa and promoting "the resettlement of Afrikaner refugees escaping government-sponsored race-based discrimination, including racially discriminatory property confiscation."

There have also been a spate of violence on farms as well as murders of farmers by gangs. In 2022, there were more than 300 attacks carried out against farms and 50 murders. This is a far smaller number of killings than are seen in urban areas of the country.

"And they reformed their constitution, and part of that is that the people who are native to that land deserve their rightful land back. That is not what the Afrikaners actually want to have happen, which are the white Africans and so, who are not originally from Africa, who colonized South Africa also," she went on.

"And so that is what they are saying is discrimination. Now, if the Constitution in South Africa is discriminatory," Allison went on, "they have their checks and balances in that land, just like we do, and that is for them to— so if the Afrikaners don't actually like the [law]. They can leave that country—"

"They are leaving to come here," Scott Jennings said, "these refugees are coming here."

"No," Allison countered, "they can actually even go to where their native land is, which is probably Germany, or..."

"Are you against them coming here?" Jennings asked.

"Holland," another analyst chimed in, correcting Allison.

"Holland, yes," Allison acknowledged before addressing Jennings' question. "I'm against the hypocrisy of this administration," she said.

"No, that's not the question," Jennings clarified, "the question is are you against them coming here?"

Allison then indicated that genocide is the standard for what makes a refugee. 

"If there was actually a genocide happening like there is in other places, in Sudan, in the Congo, I'm not opposed for Congolese and for the Sudanese to come to [America], just like I'm not opposed to Venezuelans and South Americans coming to America if they are fleeing and looking for asylum," she said. At least 33,700 Congolese refugees came to the US under Biden.

"Just these 50 people you're against," Jennings said. The Trump administration has paused most refugee programs, including those that were begun by the Biden administration to bring in further Afghans and others who had been cleared by that administration for resettlement. DHS and the Secretary of State have discretion over carveouts for refugees despite the pause.

"What I am against, it's not about being against them. What I am against is that they are being given special treatment when there is not a genocide happening in South Africa, and they just don't like the law of the land."

The Biden administration raised the refugee cap to 125,000 persons per year and prioritized those from Democratic Republic of the Congo, Afghanistan, Syria, Venezuela, and Myanmar. The highest ever resettlement of refugees from Latin America and the Caribbean was in 2024. Biden brought in 197,000 refugees during his term in office. 

In discussing the Expropriation Act, Trump noted that it "follows countless government policies designed to dismantle equal opportunity in employment, education, and business, and hateful rhetoric and government actions fueling disproportionate violence against racially disfavored landowners. In addition, South Africa has taken aggressive positions towards the United States and its allies, including accusing Israel, not Hamas, of genocide in the International Court of Justice, and reinvigorating its relations with Iran to develop commercial, military, and nuclear arrangements."