South African immigration police on Tuesday raided a U.S. refugee processing center in Johannesburg and arrested seven Kenyans who were allegedly working there illegally, along with two U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) officers.
A source told Reuters on Wednesday that the two USCIS officers were only “briefly detained and then released during the operation.”
The seven Kenyan employees, on the other hand, were immediately given deportation orders. According to the South African Home Affairs Ministry, the Kenyans held tourist visas that did not allow them to work in South Africa.
The Johannesburg site that was raided on Tuesday was established as part of President Donald Trump’s initiative to accept white South African refugees who claim to have been persecuted in their own country.
The refugee applications were processed by a Kenya-based company called RSC Africa, which is operated by a U.S.-based non-governmental organization called the Church World Service (CWS). The U.S. Embassy in South Africa announced its partnership with RSC Africa to process refugee applications last month.
The South African Home Ministry claimed the Kenyans resorted to abusing tourist visas to work at the Johannesburg refugee processing facility because South Africa previously refused to issue work visas for them. South Africa said it has “initiated formal diplomatic engagements” with both the U.S. and Kenya to resolve the matter.
“The presence of foreign officials apparently coordinating with undocumented workers naturally raises serious questions about intent and diplomatic protocol,” the South African government said.
“We are seeking immediate clarification from the South African government and expect full cooperation and accountability. Interfering in our refugee operations is unacceptable,” State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said in a statement on Wednesday.
The incident was the latest milestone in a rocky relationship between the Trump administration and South Africa, which denies President Donald Trump’s allegations of persecuting white citizens.
The U.S., and several other countries, chose not to attend the G20 summit in Johannesburg in November. Trump said the boycott was due to Afrikaners (white South Africans) “being killed and slaughtered, and their land and farms being illegally confiscated.”
After South Africa handed the rotating presidency of the G20 over to the United States for 2026, President Trump said South Africa would not be invited to next year’s summit in Miami.
“South Africa has demonstrated to the world they are not a country worthy of membership anywhere, and we are going to stop all payments and subsidies to them, effective immediately,” Trump said on November 26.
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