WPFW’s What’s At Stake host Rev. Mark Thompson interviewed Politics Done Right’s host Egberto Willies about South Africa’s Afrikaners moving to the U.S. as purported refugees.
Rev. Mark Thompson interviews Egberto Willies.
Watch Politics Done Right T.V. here.
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Summary
In this dynamic and revealing interview on What’s at Stake, Rev. Mark Thompson speaks with progressive activist Egberto Willies about the Trump administration’s quiet program to resettle white Afrikaner “refugees” from South Africa in the United States. Willies exposes the racial double standard of this policy, contrasting the privileged treatment of Afrikaners with the brutal treatment of Black and Brown migrants from Haiti, Central America, and beyond. The conversation also touches on Trump’s disregard for constitutional norms, his alliance with Elon Musk, and his backdoor efforts to dismantle Medicaid and the ACA. The interview underscores how white supremacy and economic injustice remain central to the MAGA agenda.
- Egberto Willies criticizes the Trump administration’s hypocrisy in welcoming white Afrikaner “refugees” while persecuting Black and Brown migrants.
- Afrikaners arriving in the U.S. are greeted with chartered planes, public aid, housing support, and job assistance, despite no credible threat of persecution in South Africa.
- Trump, influenced by Elon Musk and white nationalist rhetoric, leverages immigration policy to reinforce white demographic dominance.
- The conversation links this issue to broader patterns of racial injustice, from border violence to historical patterns of colonial favoritism.
- Willies warns that while the media fixates on Trump’s spectacles, his administration is quietly slashing Medicaid and undermining healthcare access for millions.
This conversation is a searing indictment of the ongoing racial and economic inequities embedded in America’s immigration and domestic policy. Egberto Willies exposes how Donald Trump’s embrace of white Afrikaner “refugees” is less about compassion and more about demographic manipulation—an attempt to tilt the racial scales in favor of whiteness. At the same time, he highlights the grotesque mistreatment of asylum seekers of color and the cynical use of national policy to protect the wealthy while gutting public programs like Medicaid. The interview is a necessary call for progressives to stay vigilant and confront the quiet, systemic cruelty that persists beneath Trump’s headline-grabbing theatrics.
Premium Content (Complimentary)
In the May 2025 episode of What’s at Stake, Rev. Mark Thompson and political activist Egberto Willies engaged in a searing and enlightening conversation that cuts through the fog of corporate media obfuscation. Their discussion unearths the calculated double standards of the U.S. immigration system under Donald Trump, the political theater around Afrikaner refugees from South Africa, and the dangerous erosion of constitutional norms in a post-Trump America.
Rev. Mark Thompson has spent most of his life as a political, civil, and human rights activist and organizer. His programs ensure these subjects are equitably addressed on every platform he uses or in any interviews he gives. His Make It Plain MIP with Rev. Mark Thompson podcast is probative.
Egberto Willies, a Panamanian-born naturalized U.S. citizen and unabashed progressive, has long been a voice for the voiceless through his show Politics Done Right. His presence on WPFW exemplifies the grassroots-informed, diasporic political dialogue that corporate news outlets consistently ignore. In this interview, he deconstructs an alarming development: the Trump administration’s decision to fly in Afrikaner “refugees” from South Africa while continuing to abuse, detain, and expel Black and Brown migrants from Central America, the Caribbean, and the Middle East.
Willies offers vital context: Afrikaners—white descendants of Dutch and European colonizers in South Africa—still control approximately 70% of the land despite representing a small minority in a nation that is over 90% Black. The so-called land reform measures—akin to eminent domain—are legal efforts by the post-apartheid South African government to rebalance centuries of theft and displacement. Yet right-wing U.S. media and white supremacist allies have reframed these restorative justice efforts as anti-white “genocide.” This is not only inaccurate but dangerous, as it plays into the global resurgence of white victimhood narratives that ignore structural power dynamics.
What makes this even more troubling is the stark contrast in treatment. As Willies explains, Afrikaner families have been flown into Dulles on chartered planes, greeted with ceremonial fanfare, provided with housing assistance, diapers, and employment help, all at the taxpayer’s expense. Meanwhile, Haitian refugees are brutalized at the U.S. border, as seen in viral images of Border Patrol agents on horseback using reins like whips—a grotesque throwback to slavery. Families fleeing gang violence and economic collapse in Central America are met with barbed wire and mass detention, not compassion.
Trump’s selective humanitarianism exposes his administration’s true motive: preserving a white demographic majority in the U.S. under the guise of national security. This form of demographic engineering—backed by figures like Elon Musk, a South African native and Trump mega-donor—is as cynical as it is sinister. Musk, who has publicly decried “woke” culture and DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) initiatives, now plays a behind-the-scenes role in shaping immigration policies that reinforce racial hierarchies rather than dismantle them.
The conversation also veers into the constitutional crisis brewing under Trump’s continued political influence. Willies and Thompson discuss the emoluments-clause-violating Qatar-funded 747 jet that Trump appears to be using as a personal aircraft—a clear example of the lawlessness normalized under MAGA rule. Thompson rightly notes that no other president would have dared accept such a foreign gift without Congressional approval. Yet Trump faces no consequences, as if the Constitution itself has been rendered obsolete by the cult of personality that surrounds him.
This erosion of democratic norms has real consequences. Willies points to the quiet war Trump is waging against Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, issues that receive scant media attention compared to the “plane of the week” spectacle. Despite Republican failures to repeal the ACA outright, Trump and his allies are implementing backdoor administrative cuts to essential programs that support millions of working-class Americans. It’s all part of a larger strategy of disinformation—distracting with headlines while dismantling the social safety net in the background.
The two also engage with callers, including one from Germany who recalls the Reagan-era airlifts of white South Africans fearing post-apartheid justice. This historical memory is critical. During the Cold War, the U.S. often sided with oppressive white regimes under the pretext of fighting communism, from South Africa’s apartheid government to Latin American juntas. Today, the MAGA right revives that imperial legacy under the banner of “Christian nationalism” and demographic fear.
As Rev. Thompson and Egberto Willies state, this is not about isolated immigration policies or bureaucratic missteps. It’s about ideology—an ideology that cloaks white supremacy in the language of law, order, and humanitarianism. It is about a ruling class willing to weaponize race, rewrite history, and abuse public funds to preserve its dominance. It is about the urgent need for progressives to connect the dots between immigration, economic justice, foreign policy, and media accountability.
The Afrikaner refugee controversy should serve as a wake-up call. If we allow one group to receive sanctuary and subsidies based not on danger but on race, then we are actively reinforcing a caste system—one that punishes Black and Brown lives while uplifting white ones, even those with a legacy of oppression. It is not justice. It is apartheid redux, dressed up in red, white, and blue.
