Rubio Announced Visa Bans on South African Officials Who Enact 'Race-Based Discrimination' or 'Uncompensated Land Seizures,' and Their Families. Pretoria Says It's Their 'Sovereign Right' to Fix 'Centuries of Racial Injustice.'

Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday, September 15, announced a new visa restriction policy aimed at South African officials, escalating a campaign against the government in Pretoria that has already included an aid freeze, the expulsion of South Africa's ambassador, a boycott of the G20 and a refugee program reserved almost exclusively for white Afrikaners. The policy targets "foreign nationals who are responsible for, or complicit in, the enactment or implementation of laws or policies that enable uncompensated land seizures, race-based discrimination, and/or the incitement of imminent violence against members of minority ethnic or racial groups in South Africa," Rubio said in a statement. The State Department said family members of those officials may also be barred.

"The United States remains gravely concerned about racially motivated crime and government-sponsored discrimination occurring against the Afrikaners and other minority populations in South Africa, including race-based discriminatory legislation, threats of land expropriation without compensation, and incitement of racial violence through dehumanizing chants and slogans," Rubio said. "The South African government has not adequately addressed the previously laid out concerns." He added that "the United States will not allow such behavior to go unchecked" and that the policies in question "directly undermine peace, economic stability, and the rule of law." The statement did not name any individual official, and the department did not say how many people it expects to be affected.

The response from Pretoria came Wednesday from Ronald Lamola, the minister of international relations and cooperation. He said the government "noted with concern" the U.S. decision and blamed unnamed "fringe groups" for misrepresenting South Africa's domestic policies to American authorities. "South Africa remains committed to addressing the injustices of the past as well as contemporary challenges as a sovereign nation," Lamola said. "It is our sovereign right to enact legislation that addresses the consequences of centuries of racial injustice." Legislation passed since the end of apartheid in 1994, he said, "aims to improve the living conditions of people who were excluded from opportunities for centuries," and any disagreements should be resolved through the country's constitutional institutions rather than "unilateral acts." His department said the bilateral rift could only be repaired through engagement between the two states. The Afrikaner lobby group AfriForum, whose leader Kallie Kriel has spent years pressing Washington to act, welcomed the restrictions.

The dispute centers on South Africa's Expropriation Act, which allows the state to take land without compensation in limited circumstances, and on affirmative-action rules that the government says are needed to undo the economic architecture of apartheid. The Trump administration has characterized these as persecution of the white minority. During a May 2025 Oval Office meeting, Trump played President Cyril Ramaphosa a video he said proved a "genocide" against white farmers; CNN and other outlets investigated the claim and found no evidence of one. "What you saw in the speeches that were being made, that is not government policy," Ramaphosa said at the time. "Our government policy is completely, completely against what he was saying." Pretoria reiterated this week that there is no evidence of systematic persecution of white South Africans.

The visa policy is the latest in a sequence. Weeks into his second term, Trump signed an order cutting aid to South Africa and directing that Afrikaners be prioritized for refugee resettlement. By late June, the U.S. had admitted more than 7,700 Afrikaners while largely closing the refugee program to the rest of the world. Rubio skipped last year's G20 foreign ministers' meeting in Johannesburg, accusing the host of "anti-Americanism," and the administration has cited South Africa's genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice as further evidence of hostility.

What the new restrictions will mean in practice is unclear. South African cabinet ministers, judges and members of parliament who helped pass or implement the land and equity laws could in principle be denied entry, but the department has left itself wide discretion. What is clear is that a relationship already at its lowest point since the end of apartheid has just gotten worse.