US and South African officials reached an agreement during a closed-door meeting in late December to allow the US to continue its controversial effort to take white South Africans to the US as refugees, an internal meeting summary reviewed by Reuters showed.
The meeting came after President Donald Trumps signature refugee programme was disrupted weeks earlier when South African authorities, in an extraordinary move, raided a US refugee processing site in Johannesburg, arresting contractors and sparking backlash from Washington.
At the December 23 meeting, the top US diplomat in South Africa, charge daffaires Marc Dillard, received assurances from Pretoria that South Africa would not interfere with Trumps programme, according to the meeting summary, which was signed by Dillard and sent to various US agencies.
