Afrikaners relish the prospect of asylum in Trumpland

Kyle believed God was looking out for him when he survived a violent farm robbery in South Africa eight years ago with only a black eye and broken ribs.

- Rachel Savage

The robbers failed to get the kettle and iron working, so were unable to burn anyone. Then the gun trigger jammed when they tried to shoot Kyle.

“They specifically said they were coming back for this farm ... [that] it was their land,” said the 43-year-old, who did not want to use his full name.

Kyle, a divorced father of three, is one of thousands of white South Africans hoping to take up Donald Trump's offer of refugee status, to escape crime and what they allege is discrimination against white people.

The Trump administration's support for these claims, while stopping other new refugee arrivals, has inflamed uncomfortable conversations about how far racial reconciliation still has to go, three decades after the end of white minority rule.

The US president's offer was a “godsend”, said Kyle, now a salesman working remotely for an overseas company: “I’ve got white children, they’re at the bottom of the hiring list here. So, there is no future for them. And the sad thing is they don’t even know what apartheid is.”