A deluge of greater than 20 000 queries crashed the e-mail server of the South African Chamber of Commerce within the United States after President Donald Trump stated he would prioritise white South Africans in a refugee programme, the chamber stated on Monday.

Trump and Pretoria are locked in a diplomatic row over a land expropriation act that Washington says will result in the takeover of white-owned farms.

‘Electronic mail server crashed’

Trump, whose tycoon ally Elon Musk was born in South Africa, stated on Friday the regulation signed in January would “allow the federal government of South Africa to grab ethnic minority Afrikaners’ agricultural property with out compensation”.

It permits the federal government, as a matter of public curiosity, to resolve on expropriations with out compensation – however solely in distinctive circumstances.

The Afrikaners are descendants of European colonists, primarily of Dutch extraction, and are primarily engaged in farming in South Africa.

English and Afrikaner colonists dominated South Africa till 1994 underneath a brutal system through which the black majority had been disadvantaged of political and financial rights.

“Our e-mail server crashed over the weekend simply as a result of sheer quantity of inquiries we have now acquired,” Neil Diamond, head of the South African Chamber of Commerce within the US (SACCUSA) informed AFP in an e-mail.

“Given the dimensions of curiosity, SACCUSA estimates that this determine may signify over 50 000 people seeking to go away South Africa and search resettlement in the USA,” he stated.

Donald Trump order ‘flawed’

Diamond warned that this might result in a abilities scarcity in South Africa that may influence agriculture and different sectors of the economic system.

“If we take a look at the EB-5, which is an investor visa, you want roughly about R15 to R20 million to have the ability to immigrate… What’s alarming to us is the big quantity of individuals that’s fascinated by taking on this chance,” he stated.

South Africa’s international ministry has stated Trump’s order “lacks factual accuracy and fails to recognise South Africa’s profound and painful historical past of colonialism and apartheid.

“It’s ironic that the chief order makes provision for refugee standing within the US for a bunch in South Africa that is still amongst essentially the most economically privileged, whereas susceptible individuals within the US from different elements of the world are being deported and denied asylum regardless of actual hardship,” it added.

Trump has requested Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Homeland Safety Secretary Kristi Noem to “prioritize humanitarian reduction, together with admission and resettlement by the USA Refugee Admissions Program, for Afrikaners in South Africa who’re victims of unjust racial discrimination.”

There have been no particulars of how the plan can be enacted as Trump halted refugee arrivals instantly after taking workplace.

Land possession stays a contentious subject in South Africa, with most farmland nonetheless owned by white individuals three many years after the tip of apartheid.

Nonetheless, some Afrikaner farmers say the brand new land legal guidelines may result in the confiscation of white-owned farms as carried out in neighbouring Zimbabwe.

The second largest occasion in South Africa’s nationwide unity authorities, the Democratic Alliance, on Monday launched a court docket bid to annul the land regulation, as reported by The South African web site.

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