‘Raises serious questions’: White House blasts Episcopal church over refusal to help white refugees

The White House condemned the Episcopal Church on Tuesday after it withdrew from federal refugee resettlement programs in protest when the government asked the church to resettle white refugees from South Africa.

In a Monday letter, a top church leader noted South Africa’s history of Apartheid and said that assisting the refugees cuts against its “steadfast commitment to racial justice and reconciliation.” The Episcopal Church’s government relations arm had touted in 2024 its efforts to help “undocumented immigrants.”

“The Episcopal Church’s decision to terminate its decades-long partnership with the U.S. government over the resettlement of 59 desperate Afrikaner refugees raises serious questions about its supposed commitment to humanitarian aid,” Anna Kelly, a deputy press secretary at the White House, told The Daily Signal. (Afrikaner is an ethnic term to designate white South Africans, who were originally Dutch.)