President Donald Trump stopped the flow of refugees into Vermont and other states when he suspended the nation’s refugee program early in his second term.
Last year, the president signed a controversial executive order creating an exception for white Afrikaans-speaking South Africans.
Now, Vermont is expected to resettle more than 100 Afrikaners before the end of September, according to Tracy Dolan, the state’s refugee office director.
“We’re going to welcome people regardless of the political environment in which they arrive,” Dolan said. “It’s not up to us to define a refugee.”
According to Dolan, roughly 50 people have already arrived, and another 50 are expected in the next two months.
Trump has accused the South African government of discriminating against Afrikaners, who previously led the country under apartheid.
The South African government disputes those claims and has condemned Trump’s policy.
A spokesperson for South Africa’s foreign ministry told the New York Times that the policy was “politically motivated and designed to question South Africa’s constitutional democracy.”
U.S. Rep. Becca Balint of Vermont said the Trump policy “effectively shut the door on refugees fleeing war, political persecution and humanitarian catastrophes in places like Sudan, Afghanistan and Haiti, even as they streamlined processing for one favored group. ”
The refugees are being resettled in Chittenden and Windham counties. Between 50 and 65 of the Afrikaners are expected to settle around Brattleboro before September, according to Joe Wiah, executive director of the Ethiopian Community Development Council, which is one of Vermont’s two authorized nonprofit groups that works with the U.S. State Department to resettle refugees.
“We don’t get to pick and choose. We continue to serve people regardless of whatever political changes there are.”Joe Wiah, executive director of the Ethiopian Community Development Council
Wiah said he had to lay off about half his staff due to cuts the Trump administration made to federal programs.
He said the flow of refugees once again bringing families to southern Vermont means he can keep his doors open, and continue to serve the 500 or so refugees who have arrived since 2021, including people from Afghanistan, Sudan and Venezuela.
“If we have to close our doors, then no one is going to come in,” he said. “We don’t get to pick and choose. We continue to serve people regardless of whatever political changes there are.”
The refugee resettlement program in southern Vermont has had strong support from community members in Windham and Bennington counties, with volunteers providing transportation, financial aid and housing to prior arrivals.
Paul Gallagher has been helping lead a group of volunteers through St. Michael’s Episcopal Church in Brattleboro, but he says the group will not be working with the South Africans.
The presiding bishop of the national Episcopal Church said in March 2025 that the organization would not extend its program to the white South African refugees because it was morally opposed to the Trump administration’s policies.
Gallagher said the Brattleboro group is not helping the South Africans largely because they have fewer needs. They speak English and are more comfortable with the Western culture that many Afghan families had to learn to navigate, he said.
“If you look at the picture of the South Africans in the airport, and their luggage, it doesn’t look like what we saw in the airport when the refugees came into Manchester, New Hampshire,” Gallagher said. “If everything else stayed the same, their needs would not reach the level that the other refugees. I really doubt if it were a level playing field that they would have made the cut.”
Gallagher said the group is continuing to work with a number of Afghan families who previously resettled in the area, many of whom are still adjusting to their new lives.
Dolan said the refugee resettlement program was put on hold at a time when many of the Afghans here in Vermont were still trying to get family members over to the United States to join them.
The state has been successful, Dolan said, in finding employment for many of the people who are trying to build a new life in Vermont, and she said there are still many jobs that could be filled if Trump had not shut the door on new immigrants.
“There’s so many very difficult outcomes of this current administration’s refugee policy,” Dolan said. “What we would love to see is an opening up of that program so that we can welcome people from all parts of the world.”
