The Trump government welcomed 59 white South Africans on Monday, who was granted a refugee regime in the US, on the grounds that they are considered victims of racial discrimination, a move that has been criticized by democrats and confusion in South Africa.

US President Donald Trump has blocked applications for refugees, mainly non -white, from other parts of the world, but in February announced the resettlement of southern, mostly descendants of Dutch settlers, saying there are discrimination.

When asked on Monday why white South Africans have a priority over victims of famine and war from other African countries, Trump said, without providing evidence, that white South Africans were being murdered.

“This is a genocide that is evolving,” Trump told reporters at the White House, moving on to the adoption of right -wing narratives for their alleged persecution.

Trump stressed that he does not favor these South Africans because they are white, adding that “their color has no importance to me.”

South Africa insists that there is no evidence of persecution and that allegations of “white genocide” in the country are not supported by any evidence.

The treatment of white South Africans as refugees rushing to escape oppression has caused concern and ironic comments from the South African authorities, who say that the Trump government is interfering with an internal issue it does not understand.

US Deputy Foreign Minister Christopher Landau welcomed the first 59 South Africans to a Washington Dulles airport on Monday. He likened their journey to that of his father, a Jew from Austria who fled Europe in the 1930s, first to South America and then in the US.

Landau did not reiterate Trump’s allegations of murder, but said that many of the South Africans were families of farmers who cultivated the Earth for generations, but now face the risk of expropriation and threats of violence.

“When you have a good seed, you can plant it on foreign soil and bloom,” he said. “We are excited to welcome you to our country, where we believe you will bloom.”

Trump’s order in February to reset the South Africans citing a law on the land introduced this year by South Africa, with the aim of facilitating state expropriation of land for reasons of public interest, which has not caused concern among some.

Some of the South Africans headed to Minnesota, a state that leans towards the Democrats and has a tradition of refugee hosting, while others were planning to settle in states controlled by Republicans, such as Eidaho and Alabama, according to sources.

Democratic Jean Sahin Senator, a leading member of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, described the move as “incomprehensible”.

“The decision of this government to place a specific group at the beginning of the series is clearly politically motivated and an attempt to rewrite the story,” she said Monday.