This American Life - 872: Winners

Episode Date: November 2, 2025

America loves winners—now more than ever. But how do you get to a win in 2025 America? We get up close and follow someone trying to build a big win for herself and thousands of others like her. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.Prologue: Ira talks to producer Diane Wu about an informal survey she’s done with the staff of This American Life about a phrase Ira says a lot that includes the word “winners.” (8 minutes)Act One: Two people see one of President Trump’s first executive orders and get excited, and then get to work. (30 minutes)Act Two: We follow the progress of one woman as she builds up, from scratch, a whole movement based on one of Trump’s executive orders. (19 minutes)Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.orgThis American Life privacy policy.Learn more about sponsor message choices.

Okay, so here's something I learned about myself this last week. Today's show, we're doing a show about winners, and as we talked about this idea here at the radio show, I learned that there is something I apparently say all the time here at our office as we make the show. And I really had no idea. I said this at all until a few months ago when somebody on staff pointed this out. And back when that happened, I felt like, sure, yes, I guess I have said that every now and then over the years. But this week I learned I had that wrong.

Yeah, you say it all the time. I am joined in the studio now by my co-worker Diane Wu. Hey there, Diane. Hi, Ira. It's something that I have noticed, but I didn't talk about it with my coworkers until this week. And when I went to them and taped those conversations, everybody knew what I was talking about. Whenever you feel like you're trying to work on a story and you're in your low point, he kind of gives you this look. And he's like, no, you're a winner.

You know, you know how in Harry Potter they're just like, you're a wizard every That's what he kind of does with winners The thing Ira always says is Let's win We're winners We're winners, we can do this I think when I first started working here

As like an intern basically I can't remember what it was But I told him like I don't think I can do that And he's like, that's a loser mentality We're winners And then I remember thinking like Oh no, I have

I'm a winner. I like to win things. He spoke to something. That worked on me. I can't believe anyone actually feels that way. That's so great for them. It's like a moment when you look around a table and you can see on everybody's faces that they're a little bit, that they're tired and they're not feeling like things are going to work out. And then Ira will come in with, we got this. This is going to be great. This is going to be so easy. This is going to just be so easy. We know what we have to do. We're winners. We just have to do it. Let's win. Let's win. I say that is so weird here, everybody talking about that. Because I think I just was saying this without thinking. You know, I think that's why I didn't realize I was saying it and how often I was saying it. Like, it's not this deeply calculated, I must motivate the troops thing. It's just that some part of me just chemically is just feels like, come on, let's go. We're winners. Let's go. Thank you.

And some people find this really motivating when you do it. But others, when you're saying this stuff about winners, it just does nothing for them. They just don't get it. Wait, really? Yeah, they're like, why does he keep doing this? What is he talking about? It's terrible. It doesn't do anything but make me angry.

This, of course, is her coworker Nadia. It made me eye roll. And it made me completely be like, I don't want to do this. The winner thing also doesn't work for a coworker Lily. the first times I would hear it it was like a tell to me I'm like oh shoot I'm not going to fit here at all this guy thinks he's a winner

all these people that I don't know very well yet are also apparently winners apparently they hire for winners and that's certainly not me because I think of winners people who think of themselves as winners I'm like you guys are just a bunch of like try hard narks you know and I'm like not about winning

like I'm very much like I identify as a loser I am kind of a loser I'm a quitter Can I just up the tape That is such a funny thing to hear somebody say out loud. I used to play sports, like, kind of competitively, which I think would surprise everyone who knows me. Like, I don't seem like someone who would play sports and, like, how competitive, like, how intensely were you playing sports? Okay, well, my team in high school won state in California, my soccer team, which was, like, a huge deal. That's a huge deal.

That's a huge state. It's a huge state. And then I played soccer in college, too. And then one time when I was, I guess it was like the first. season of um soccer in college and we had to do like a mental some kind of a test like test how we were mentally some assessment this was like some kind of personality test to see how mentally tough and competitive you are and my coach pulled me aside afterward and he was just like just so you know like everyone in the team other than you was like upper 80s and 90s he's like and your score was like 34

your brain is like not wired like the rest of the people in these teams like you're wired like a grumpy pessimistic loser and he's like I don't mind he's like but we got a lot of progress to make here but it just kind of it like told me something about myself at that time I'm like I am like that why am I here this is why I don't relate to these people do you think that's still you yes and so for years here at the show So she really didn't get it, the winner's thing. But then at some point a couple years in, when we were working on that story, I think she said it was when we were working on that story about Albertville. You remember that one? Of course.

We were traveling together and spending a lot of hours together, you and me and her and Miki. Yeah, like super, super long days, right? At some point when we were working on that story, she felt its shift. Like, she was so worn down. And one day you said it. And it just sounded different to her. And now I kind of like it because I feel like I understand now that the idea is more just to like help you gear up for like what's ahead of you. Like at one point, Ira was just like, it's like we have to get up a mountain and there are mules who are going to bring us up the mountain.

And we just have to like encourage these mules to drag us up the mountain. But we're the mules. So we just have to like beat ourselves up this mountain. And I was like, yeah, that's exactly what's happening. And it's like, it does do something to, like, give you a burst of confidence, I guess. Ladies and gentlemen, I know how corny this idea is and gets it in a thousand locker room pep talks and Nike ads and movie speeches before the big climactic, whatever. But it is nonetheless true. Deciding you're a winner.

Deciding you can do it, has a power. It creates possibilities. And deciding your winner isn't just something that Americans do, but it is such a fundamental thing for so many Americans. It's Muhammad Ali and Billy Jean King and Zoran Mamdani, but also Donald Trump, and Simone Biles and Frank Sinatra. And so much of this country was made by outsiders who traveled here. So many of them just deciding and believing that they could succeed here

and have a better life. Maybe that's why this mentality is so common here and feels so American. We are the mule. Today on our show, winners, we're going to watch them in action in a tough game where the rules are literally being made up as they go along.

From WBEZ Chicago, cis American life, stay with us. This message comes from Wise, the app for using money around the globe. When you manage your money with Wise, you'll always get the mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Join millions of customers and visit Wise.com. T's and C's Apply. Our common nature is a musical journey with Yo-Yo Ma and me, Ana Gonzalez, through this complicated country. We go into caves, onto boats and up mountain trails to meet people here. Hear their stories, their poetry, and, of course, play some music.

All to reconnect to nature and get closer to the things we're missing. Listen to Our Common Nature from WNYC, wherever you get podcasts. This American Life, Act 1, Winners Welcome. We've done a lot of stories this year about people who were negatively affected in one way or another by big new policies rolled out by the Trump administration. People have been detained by ICE or who lost government jobs or had their funding cut or been kicked out of the military or found their black student union

can no longer be called a black student union. But the story we're about to tell is about other people. People who saw new Trump administration policies who saw one of the hundreds of executive orders that the president assigned. And they thought to themselves, holy cow, that's great news. for me, personally.

They were targeted by some new policy and happy about it. This particular group of winners is in the news this week, but Khana Jafi Watt has been following this story from the beginning through many turns. You're about to hear drama, suspense, rivalry. This is a true story about trying to win in 2025 America. Her story begins, as so many do these days,

with an announcement from the White House. Here's Khanna. The word went out in, February of this year. It was Executive Order 14204, title, Addressing Aggregious Actions of the Republic of South Africa. Do you remember where you are? Yeah, so it's actually a funny story. I was, I was asleep, obviously. It was South African time. It was day during the U.S. but night here. And I woke up and it was like three in the morning and I saw like a media storm. So I think I was one of the first Afrikaners to actually see it.

Uist stridem, fresh-faced, serious, Afrikaner, a white minority in South Africa. U.S. is the leader of a whites-only town. Yes, one of those exists. It's all Afrikaners in the northern Cape. In the desert, it's called Orania. U.S. grew up there. So it's 3 a.m., and he's reading this executive order from President Trump. It talked about a, quote, shocking disregard of citizens' rights.

happening in South Africa, unjust discrimination against Afrikaners. U.S. has been talking about these exact issues, the egregious actions mentioned in the executive order, for years. President Trump was using the same words he uses, calling for the same changes. I mean, we could almost not believe our eyes when we saw, you know, the president of the mightiest country in the world mentioning us specifically. It sounds like you go to like a like a rock concert and your favorite band up there is like, happy birthday, Billy. And you're like, oh my God, I'm Billy.

Yes, it's basically that feeling. An incredible win, a high. And then, suddenly, a bit of a crash. A few sentences later in the executive order, U.S. saw the order's solution to address this unjust targeting of Afrikaners was for the United States, to resettle, quote, Afri-Connor refugees, escaping government-sponsored race-based discrimination, end quote. So that was, I think it was for all of us, a big, big, big surprise.

Refugees, U.S. thought, as in leave the country? He didn't want to leave the country. He wanted President Trump to help Afrikaners get their own territory in Africa. and he wanted President Trump to pressure the South African government to get rid of what he sees as racist laws against white people. He was not looking to come to the U.S. and become American. Afrikaners belong in Africa. So it's kind of, we don't want to be refugees. We want to be, yeah, we are African, we belong here.

The Afrikaners are a specific group of a proud history. The history that you may know about Afrikaners is that they invented a party. that for nearly half a century, Afrikaners maintained a brutal and violent system of racial segregation in South Africa that denied black South Africans political and economic power, the right to vote, the right to own land, to equal housing, education, wages, to move freely, speak freely, and choose where to live, to run businesses.

U.S. is referring to the Afrikaner history before all of that, the mostly Dutch settlers who came to South Africa and became, Afrikaners more than three centuries ago. Set up farms, fought the British. We moved away from British occupation with Oxenwagon. We are farming people. We are people of the open felt. We modernized our language. We did the first heart transplant. And so on. And now all of that's taken away. We have no political say. We have no place. When South Africa became a democracy after apartheid in 1994, it was one of the few countries in the world. countries in the world that was trying to build a democracy with lots of different people,

different races, religions, with 11 official national languages. The new South Africa branded itself the Rainbow Nation. Rainbowism emphasized unity. And U.S. felt the Afrikaner identity was shoved aside and threatened. Afrikaners were expected to be just South African. The issue is with Afrikaners is we're a very small minority in a very large. country. Just demographic realities being such a minority that we have so little influence politically and economically. You know, who's going to call the shots? It's always the majority and

minorities it's trampled on. A word on the trampling of white South Africans. They own nearly three times the farmland of black South Africans and hold more than 60% of the top corporate jobs in South Africa, while being around 7% of the population. There was no massive wealth or land redistribution after apartheid fell. Instead, the government has adopted various policies to try to rectify vast racial imbalances in employment, education, resources, everything, overtime, bit by bit. These were various affirmative action-type efforts, like requiring companies to diversify their shareholders. And recently, a new land reform law that would allow the government, in rare cases, to take property without

compensation. That's the trampling U.S. is talking about, and President Trump's executive order is talking about. The only problem for U.S. with the executive order was that whole refugee bit. I gathered some of the decision makers in our community, and we decided to immediately react to this. So we had a very, very serious conversation. We understood it as a watershed moment. And we said, well, we're going to give a very simple message that we were put on social media are hoping to reach the Trump administration with that. And our message was basically firstly, firstly thank you. And secondly, we appreciate it. But then we don't want to be refugees in another man's country. We have a three-word message for President Trump,

and that is rather help us here. And help us here became our slogan. The two big Afrikaner advocacy groups in South Africa were on the the same page. Thank you, you see us and our plight. And no thank you on that whole refugee part. Help us here. U.S. went with the delegation of AfriConners to America, to lobby in D.C. and New York. And the message seemed to land. They made international headlines. No thanks. White South Africans turned down Trump's U.S. immigration offer. Afri-Connor communities reject Trump's resettlement offer. We were mortified.

You were away? Mortified. Mortified. Mortified. Because, hold on a minute. We don't want President Trump to take this away because we apparently said no thank you. We don't say no thank you.

We accept. Sam Busa, fuming from her home on the eastern Cape of South Africa, Cuisulu-Natal. These big Afrikaner membership groups going to America, acting like they're speaking for everyone? Needless to say, the people that were not their members, and did not think that way, became very angry, and then they all found me. U.S. efforts might have been the end of things, except for Sam popped up.

She saw that executive order, and Sam had different ideas for what to do with it. Sam is 60 years old, semi-retired businesswoman, white, constitutionally busy. She is rarely doing one thing at a time. I'm going to put the kettle on while I'm talking to you. Okay, perfect. And have a tea break. Wonderful. Yes. She told me the story.

There I was happily getting on with my organic gardening at the beginning of February 2025, and out of the blue came this executive order to everybody's shock and surprise, let's be honest. So I immediately thought, myself, I'm all for this. But still, the idea of refugee was a bit of a shock. Did you think, like, refugees? Like, that's not a word that I would guess you had associated with yourself before. No, no, no. It was actually a horrifying word. You know what the word refugee conjures up?

Is raggedy people that have run across a border that are escaping a war zone and are sort of hiding under a tree waiting for a helicopter to rescue them? You know, that's what it conjures, doesn't it? And so it was totally foreign. to me, and I looked at this, and I thought, wow. The word refugee was totally foreign to Sam, just like it was to U.S. But Sam still felt sure the executive order was intended for her. And she wanted it to be for her. Sam wanted to move to America.

She was convinced there was no future for her young adult sons in South Africa, that the country was too dangerous, and that as white men, they'd be discriminated against and unable to succeed. So this seemed like a great opportunity. if she could figure it out. This executive order, like most of the 200-plus executive orders that have come out this year, it's not a detailed document. It's two pages. It's a broad announcement that injustice is happening in South Africa. Afrikaners are the victims, and they're invited to be refugees in America. What it does not say is how this will work. How many people, who qualifies,

how to apply. How do these particular people fit within the existing laws that govern the refugee program? How will they get through the vetting process? It leaves all those details to be sorted out at some other time by someone else. Sam took it upon herself to be that someone. The first thing to tackle was that word refugee. Sam was not a refugee. Or was she? Could she possibly be one? You know, after 40 years in business, I've got a pretty decent knowledge of legal stuff. So I just went and looked in the obvious places. Like, okay, so who runs refugee programs? So it's, okay, so it's PRM. Okay, who else is involved? U.S.C.I.S. I went on their websites and tried to understand the difference between refugees and asylees.

But it didn't take me very long. I was quite obsessed. A key thing, Sam wanted to know, Could she qualify as a refugee if she hadn't fled the country? In all the government websites she went to, the answer seemed pretty straightforward. No. A refugee is someone who is living, quote, outside any country of such person's nationality. Refugees are people who flee. Sam was living at home in her home country. But then, she found a section of immigration law, 101A, 42B, which allows a refugee to be in-country, under special circumstances specified by the president.

Aha, this is how President Trump could do it. Maybe she could qualify. It became apparent to me that, you know, there are many types of refugee programs and that it wouldn't be a case of expecting South Africans to, you know, literally go into FEMA tents or anything like that. It became pretty clear to me that these things can be rather dignified, and quite orderly.

This was her first stab at interpreting the language in the executive order, figuring out how she could fit the word refugee, legally and comfortably. Next, the executive order uses the words, quote, unjust racial discrimination. It says for the victims of discrimination. Sam was confident her family qualified for that. She says specifically her young adult sons have been denied or would be denied jobs in South Africa because they're white. But if Sam went to the officials

who screen refugee applications to America, she wasn't sure discrimination would actually be enough to qualify as a refugee. She read the main law governing U.S. immigration, the Immigration and Nationality Act, and... The word discrimination is not used in dealing with refugees around the world.

They never used the word discrimination, yet President Trump used the word discrimination. Quite possibly the word discrimination in the executive order probably wasn't his best choice of word. I think he probably meant to say persecution. Because persecution is required. Another puzzle for Sam to figure out. Meanwhile, I decided to put up a little website. Questions and answers. And then whatever my findings are, let me share those with my fellow citizens. Okay, I came across the word Americana's, which I thought was cute as anything. Ameri Connors is Afrikaans for Americans.

She registered the domain and set up a Facebook page. This became a hub for other white South Africans who'd heard about the executive order. So we started disseminating what we in our personal capacity had investigated. And obviously there were lots of I don't knows that went with all of that. So I don't want to give anybody the opinion that somehow we knew everything. What were the lot of the like repeat questions or most common questions? Well, you know, one of the most difficult ones was they say Afrikaans. Now, in South Africa, you're American. You don't understand the nuance of the cultures in South Africa. So half of the population is English speaking,

of the white population is English speaking. So all of the folks like myself, that's of British descent, was thinking, oh, no, they're just going to take the Afrikaners and not me, the Englishman, you know. You're not Afrikaner. So, yeah, no, I'm not an Afrikaner. Pause. This was surprising to me. Sam was running a website for people interested in Trump's offer to Afrikaners. Afrikaners are generally descended from Dutch settlers, speak Afrikaans as their first language.

White South Africans who are not Afrikaners, generally English. ancestry. We were 20 minutes into talking. It hadn't actually occurred to me to ask if she indeed was Afrikaner. She's not. But this was another spot where the word in the executive order did not precisely fit Sam until Sam figured out how it could fit. But the truth is these groups have mixed intermingled across hundreds of years. So to prove one person is an Afrikaner. And the other doesn't have any Afrikaner is almost impossible without genealogies for everybody. So we did make a deduction, I'm sure, as an English person, you'll be included. But we always had to put a disclaimer on that, because we just don't know. What does an American think

the word Afrikaner means? So you thought, okay, they might mean only Afrikaners, meaning strictly Afri-Connor background, ancestry, speaks Afrikaans. They might mean somebody who lives on a farm. They might just mean white people in South Africa. Correct. You know, so I cautiously told everybody that it was my opinion that it included all South Africans, English, and Afrikaans. Oh, white South Africans.

But I was only 95% sure. Almost everyone who came to the Americanaer's Facebook page, had the same question Sam had. Do I qualify to go to the U.S. under this executive order? Here's a comment. Not a funny or rude question. Just want to know what criteria is acceptable candidate. How bad does your experience need to be?

Another, how will the USA decide if I'm suitable? I'm white, Afrikaans, male, hardworking with strong Christian beliefs in a country where I'm prosecuted for my skin color, my language, my beliefs. Does that make me, quote, suitable, or must I first be shot and stabbed? There were other questions, too. I'm 56, aren't I too old? Or, you know, am I allowed to bring my dogs? And it's just for farmers because a lot of people were talking about the farmers all the time.

President Trump's also mentioned a lot about farmers. What are the answers? Okay, so as myself and one of the volunteers, did is we analyzed every single word that had been said by the president and the state department beyond the executive order. So the fact sheet that was put out as well as the FAQs that were put out. But what we were saying to people is, look, a refugee program in general does not discriminate and whether you're all, you know, whether you're 90 or your two. If you're in peril, refugee programs are accepting of any human,

being in peril. So those, that sort of deduction we were able to make and answer lots of questions. Can you bring your dogs? No. Well, you can, but you'll do that privately out of your own pocket, but the refugee program is not inviting your pets. This is the level of detail Sam was helping people to think through. One problem she still had to solve, the question of persecution. To qualify as a refugee, one must be able to articulate. a past experience of persecution or fear of future persecution? Yeah, well, I've had some events in my life, which I would struggle to classify as persecution. So my past persecution records are somewhat scant.

They barely make the persecution grade, okay? So they would rise to severe discrimination. So, look, I've been held at gunpoint with my baby in my arms, okay? But I can't say that that's persecution. What I can say is that's just terrible crime. South Africa does have terrible crime, crime that is experienced by every demographic group. But Sam looked at the precise definition. You can either talk about something that's happened to you that was persecution.

Or you can talk about, so it's and or. or you can talk about your fear of future persecution. This became a big topic in the AmeriConnor's group, What Counts as Future Persecution? In the various group chats and on the Facebook page, there was one video that got passed around often as potential evidence. It's a video of a black politician from a minority party in South Africa, leading a chant called Kill the Boar at a political rally.

Boar's farmers in Afrikaans. Kill the Boar is an old anti-partisan. Chant. Afrikaner groups say it's clearly intended to incite violence, and the lyrics are pretty stark, kill the boar, the farmer. There have been several court cases about the use of the song over the years. Most recently, in an appeal, the judge at the constitutional court wrote that a reasonably well-informed person would understand that the politician was using a historic struggle song as a provocative way to advance a political agenda. It was a form of political speech. and therefore protected under the country's freedom of speech laws.

Elon Musk posted the video on X. Musk, South African-born, wrote, quote, they are openly pushing for a genocide of white people in South Africa. So my fear of future persecution and future violence is way greater than my history. My fear of future persecution is basically being skinned alive in a genocide. I mean, you've got government. ministers and the Constitutional Court, not endorsing, but allowing, saying that they're entitled to call for the death of white people in South Africa.

And then you've got the government that is completely silent on them calling for the death of white South Africans. So if that's not persecution, I don't know what is. Sam had met him. it through each tricky word in the executive order. Refugee, Offer, Conner, discrimination. She'd interpreted the order and translated it and figured out how it would work, how it was legal, and who could qualify. Her and all the other like-minded people she'd organized into a group through her website. Six weeks after the executive order came out, Sam wrote her own message

to President Trump. U.S. Stridem's communique had a polite three-point summary, Sam's did too, but her message was very different. Sam says hers was signed by 27,000 people in two weeks. So the memorandum said three things. Thank you. We appreciate what you've done by reaching out and extending this offer. Number two, we accept your offer. And number three, we will come to contribute, not to drain. The Ameri Conner, delivered their memorandum to the U.S. Embassy in Pretoria, and Sam posted a photo to the Facebook page. She wrote, we've gathered, we've organized, we've collaborated, we've spoken, we've succeeded.

The first group of white South Africans granted refugee status by the Trump administration arrived in the U.S. Monday. The United States has welcomed around 50 white South Africans. May 12, 2025, 59 white South Africans. Sam Busa was not one of them. she was watching from South Africa. While Sam was organizing AmeriConners, the U.S. government had been rapidly putting together

a small group of South African refugees, bringing them over on a private chartered plane to Dulles Airport. At Dulles, they stood in a loosely arranged line holding small American flags, their children in pajamas, smiling, unsure which camera to look at, as they were personally welcomed by the deputy secretaries of both,

the U.S. State Department and the Department of Homeland Security. Welcome. Welcome to the United States of America. It makes me so happy to see you with our flag in your hands, and that flag symbolizes liberty for so many of us. I want you all to know that you are really welcome here, and that we respect what you have had to deal with these last few years. We respect the long tradition of your people.

people and what you have accomplished over the years. And I am sure that you will be successful. Everybody within DHS, we've been so excited to be able to get you guys here. After all the, I was tracking your flight, 12 hours that you were last night. I'm like, oh my God. So thank you for just the patience of being able to get here. We just, we're so grateful. I think Chris and I both just wanted to come and make sure that we greet you guys, we meet you, give our contact information to you. and if there's anything that we could do. I've looked at the photos of this press conference so many times, zoomed in on every detail.

Just trying to make my brain take in this picture, this photo op, and everything that it means about America and about South Africa. Those two countries have always played off each other in my mind. My parents grew up in South Africa. I grew up in America watching South Africa. It's where our family was. and South Africa has always been a symbol. In my lifetime, it was a global pariah boycotted by everyone,

and then apartheid fell, and South Africa became a model of justice and reconciliation. American leaders tripped over themselves to celebrate the new South Africa, practically deified Nelson Mandela, photos of President Clinton applauding as Mandela and then-president clerk shook hands and Clinton, quote, thrilled at the peaceful election process and national unity. Photos of Mandela winning the Congressional Gold Medal, Newt Gingrich on one side, President Clinton on the other. America was eager to share in the symbolism of this new multiracial democracy

because it added some nice shine to our own. Their story was our story, and their redemption, ours. Their success was ours too. Now, these photos. of Afrikaner refugees in the Dulles Airport, this is a new kind of symbolism, a new way for America to use South Africa to say something about ourselves.

In these photos, South Africa is not an inspiring symbol of multiracial democracy anymore. That story is over. The photos are like a reset. South Africa is a cautionary tale. It's a DEI nation, a place where white people can no longer be safe,

where the tables have turned, where they've gone too far. This is where efforts toward equality lead us. A Rainbow Nation only ends in disaster. And the photo app communicates something else, too. It says, look, this is our new refugee policy. Well, because what's happening in South Africa fits the textbook definition of why the refugee program was created.

Stephen Miller, presidential advisor, seems to be the guy coming up with our immigration policy. The Trump administration suspended refugee admissions to the United States. It was one of the president's first executive orders on his first day in office. Refugees waiting in camps all over the world, sometimes for generations, were cut off. Most refugees wait years for the chance to be vetted, to possibly get a chance to come to the United States. These South Africans arrived in three months. The refugee program is not intended as a solution for global poverty, and historically it has

been used that way. This is not true. For instance, 12,000 refugees had already been approved to resettle in America when the Afrikaners arrived. They were approved, meaning they'd been through the security clearance, the health check, background check, interviews, and were arranging their travel to the U.S. Some of them already had flights booked. Those 12,000 people were approved not because they were fleeing poverty.

They were fleeing war, religious persecution. political persecution. Congolese families who fled to Rwanda after their neighbors were killed. Rohingya from Myanmar who were fleeing kidnappings, rape, and genocide. Some Afghans who supported U.S. troops in America's

war effort. Those people, Miller is saying, are not the textbook refugees. These are. After the photo op, Back in May, two different schools of thought emerged about what was going to happen next. This is a fancy way of saying, Sam and I disagreed. We are the schools of thought.

I figured after seeing those photos and videos of the new South African refugees, I figured that's probably it for the whole alleged refugee program. It's a pretty effective symbolism. I think they got what they wanted. The Trump administration has a lot of other goals to pursue. They're not likely going to bother building a whole program. to bring over more people like Sam. Sam, back in South Africa,

had gotten in her application for resettlement to the U.S. and was waiting with her thousands of Americanaers. And she had a different thought. I have absolutely no doubt. Sam says she'd read everything everyone was saying, everything, every person in the administration, adjacent to the administration. They're all very intent on, okay, well, this is just the pilot project.

We're going to ramp things up. Now, I have no doubt that that's where it's going. She had no doubt. I had some doubt. One of us was right. Hon. Jofi Walt. Coming up, secret moving companies and a joke about cars. That's in a minute.

Chicago Public Radio, when our program continues. It's this American Life from my record. Glass. Today's program, winners. People who decide I can make this happen as the first step to making it happen. If you're just tuning in, we're in the middle of Khan and Jaffe-Walt's story about Ameri Connors, white South Africans who want to come to the United States as refugees. Where we left off, the United States had brought over a small group of 59 of them. And back in South Africa, Sam Busa had organized thousands of others who were waiting, hoping the United States was about to ramp up a big program for them. Here's Hannah.

In the moment, the 59 South Africans landed in the U.S., Sam's life was transformed. She was inundated with phone calls, emails. Oh, I'm working 20-hour days, so I'm frazzled, so I'll try and focus. Everyone who had applied, but had not been included in that first small group that went to America, wanted to know what this meant. Would they get a call soon? Had AmeriConnor's heard anything? Reporters wanted to know what is AmeriConners. How many are you? Who are you? And Americans, who saw the news on X or Ben Shapiro or Megan Kelly, wanted to send their support. We've had actually had a fantastically loving response from America. In truth, I can't tell you how many hundreds and hundreds of Americans have reached out to us in our little group by email, on our X feeds, all over the place. coming forward giving the most unbelievable testimony of how, you know, how excited they are to have

us there and people offering help and not money, no, not at all, nobody's, nobody's exchanged dissent. And who's, but what, tell me about what are people saying and who are they? A lot of people just saying, hey, I'm in Alabama or I'm in Utah or whatever, I've got a farm here and I'd be happy to, I've got a cottage. If somebody wants to stay here for two months, I can give two months accommodation, or there are people saying, hey, I've got a lot of contacts in business, or I'm involved with the church or whatever, whoever's coming to Florida, put them in touch with me. I've got lots of contacts.

I can probably hook them up. Sam responds to each person who reaches out and tells them, we don't have anyone for you yet, but as soon as they ramp up this program, we'll be in touch. Thank you so much. We are so excited to join your society. I can't explain. And then she puts their name, the state they're from, and contact information into a spreadsheet for the future. Sam said there were 70,000 people interested in going to America. Oh, yeah. No, we're all coming over. No, we'll see you soon.

Wow. On our way, around the corner. Maybe, but in the meantime, they were still living in South Africa. and their fellow countrymen also saw all the photos from Washington and the press conferences from the White House about persecution, targeting, and murder of white South Africans. South Africans were not, as a whole, happy about this. The government spent weeks repeating,

there is no persecution. Crime in South Africa affects everyone, irrespective of race. South African president, Sarah Ramaphosa, called the South Africans who left for the U.S. cowards. When you run away, you're a coward, and that's a real cowardly act. Which made news. Ramapo's acclaim these individuals were unwilling to support the country's efforts to correct historic inequities left by a party. A populist political party made a show of filing a criminal complaint against one of the Afrikaner lobbying groups,

calling them treasonous for spreading lies to the United States in order to influence President Trump. Reactions from regular South Africans ranged from confusion, like this Afrikaner interviewed by Reuters. Why would you want to go to the people of getting on like normal? And, you know, what are you going to do over there? To mockery. Here's a white comedian on TikTok talking to a black comedian. I turned on the TV the other night and I hear from Donald Trump and Elon Musk that you've been planning a genocide. The black comedian sitting next to him says,

Oh, yeah, we're killing every day. Like, I was actually playing panel today. I thought to myself, goodness gracious, we are not killing fast enough. And there were lots of angry South Africans on social media. You are not refugees. You're not brave. You're not victims. You're scared of a world where you don't get to be in charge.

And that makes the rest of the Afrikaans community cringe. Trevor Noah, South Africa's own on his podcast, asked his friend Eugene Koza about it. When was the first time you ever heard about it? Like white genocide in South Africa? It was this year. It was when everyone caught onto it. I almost felt like I was part of living in another country because I looked outside and I was like,

where's this thing happening? And I checked on my neighbor. She was fine. The arrival of white South Africans in America was enough of a national spectacle, an in-joke, that some advertisers got in on it. For instance, a car commercial where a bunch of white men in jeeps

pull up outside a black man's house, wake him up revving their engines. The man comes out of his house and his robe saying, What's going on? And the white men yell, you haven't heard? You haven't heard? We've got refio jeep status, baby. They revved the engines more.

The black man walks over to one of them. Can I give it a go? No, apparently it's just for us. These jokes and comments, they were coming from people who all went through something together, not that long ago. The end of apartheid, the transition to democracy, a process that was painstakingly designed to happen peacefully, to take white South Africans' worries into account and to keep them in the fold. Nobody gave up land or wealth, nobody tore down institutions. So much of that

went unchanged. On Trevor Noah's podcast, his friend, comedian Eugene Koza, says the white refugee thing has him thinking back to that time after apartheid fell and how quickly black South Africans were asked to move to reconciliation, while white South Africans still held so much power over day-to-day life. We had to make nice very, very quickly. As soon as that ended,

you had to be nice to the school governing body for your child to enter that school. You have to be nice to show that you're not like that kind of a crime in an estate, in a housing community. You know, we had to be nice. So the ones that could play nice to be in those communities, the ones that couldn't afford played nice to work in those communities.

I think South Africa became a poster child for diplomacy. We almost had to, as a country, put our best foot forward. Everyone moves forward. That was the whole agreement of post-apartheid South Africa. The white people who used to have all the power and now only had some of the power would accept things and move forward. And Black South Africans who used to have no power

and now had a little more would agree to forget Give the architects of apartheid and just move forward. Nobody looks back. Nobody complains. We all just get on with building the country. Together. The white South Africans who wanted to be refugees in America,

they were breaking that agreement. We're a very, very hated class in South Africa right now. Hated, hated, hated. Sam continued what she'd been doing, managing the Americana site, preparing people, responding to questions. But Americanaurs were a thing now for everyone, from social media to moving companies, and not a positive thing. Okay, so people are going to want to send some boxes, you know, with grannies, keepsakes in it and whatever, you know, they might leave their furniture behind, but most families will want to take a box or two. So I set out to speak to all the removals companies that can do international removals to America.

in South Africa, strangely enough, which actually shocked me, quite a few of them, said, oh, I don't want anything to do with you refugees. Put the phone down on my ear. Wait, Sam, had you experienced that before? Like, was that shocking to you? Totally. Yeah. It's almost like we're sort of second-class citizens now or something like that. Anyway, so, or that they don't want to be seen by. the people who are staying to be supportive of the refugee program. And those that wanted to help also didn't want their logos anywhere on publicly because they thought they would be subject to attack.

So I couldn't advertise somebody's company on my website and say, hey, these guys will offer a good deal and show a banner with their logo on it. So she figured out a workaround. On her website, Sam put a tab called Packing Up an essay. on the right hand side of that page I have a little form so you can put your info in as a refugee and then there are secret people that like the refugees that are willing to help them in the background that get an email when you fill in that form they privately quote the refugee on transporting goods so I've got this like secret intro service we don't charge for it at all

whatsoever but it's kind of like an underground thing so we've got this that for all sorts of services, like, you know, financial advice for people needing to get their pension money out of the country and that kind of thing. We've got it for, we're doing, we're busy with selling cars now. If you're putting the property on the market, but yeah, we're not very well liked. So, it's so ironic. If we weren't persecuted before, we certainly are now. So it's almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Extend the executive order, extend the offer for refugee program, and then also spark a bit of a race war as a result. Did you feel like identified with other white people in South Africa in this way before? No. No, no. This is a completely new phenomenon for all of us. I don't think a group has ever been so tight-knit as this group is in this country ever. In fact, I think it's akin to your MAGA on a very tiny scale. You know that feeling of those people that grouped together and would have TPP USA and all those sort of things going on and they would all flock to the rallies and whatever and that vibe is that spark of excitement.

Well, we've got the same thing going on here on a much smaller scale. It's actually quite sweet. I had been focused on whether large numbers of South Africans would be allowed to come to the U.S. I hadn't imagined just how much the possibility of them coming here would change their lives, even if they never left. Are they so many new friends? So many new friends. 18 hours a day. days a week. I live, eat, sleep and breathe what's going on here. Do you feel like it's a big

part of your identity now that you're an Americana or that you're part of this group that's eligible for this program? Totally, I'm loving it. I'll be honest, it's given me a newfound purpose. I feel very honored and privileged to have made a difference. You know, it's like you take something on when it actually works. A few weeks ago, seven months after the executive order, I got a text from Sam. I can't chat to anyone in the media at the moment. I went to the AmeriConnor's website, and it had changed. It now said,

AmeriConnor's is an official referral partner for the U.S. refugees admissions program. Sam couldn't talk to me anymore because she was now officially working with the U.S. State Department. America Connors, this group she had invented, was helping the U.S. government identify eligible refugees to the United States. Sam was right, and I was wrong. The U.S. government is processing refugee applicants in Pretoria right now at record speeds. I'm hearing people are being processed within weeks. Everything about the way the program is structured, it's the way Sam imagined. it would go. To qualify, you do not need to be Afrikaner. You have to be from a racial minority

population in South Africa, i.e. everyone except black people. You do not need to provide documentation of past persecution. The chant, Kill the Boar, qualifies as credible fear of future persecution. And you do not have to flee, as other refugees do. You can be processed for resettlement from your home. I haven't talked to Sam in a while now. I'm not even sure where she is. Is she here or there? I do know from talking to her before

a little bit about what she pictures her life here will be like. Where in the states will you go? Do you know? Well, you know, we're not sure where we would initially be relocated to, but I'm keen on North Carolina myself. Why? Where are you based?

In New York. I don't know. I've got posh on for mountains, and I'm thinking if I go way into western North Carolina, I'm sure where that's the Appalachians, and I'm thinking that'll suit. So if I sell my little household goodies in my car and my whatever, you know, I'm going to go with this tiny wallet with a few dollars in it, and then we hit the ground running. We've got to get ourselves.

working and doing all sorts of amazing things to earn a living when we get there, you know. So we'll do that as a team, me and my boys. A new American archetype. I think about Sam Busa this way now. And I think of her often. Every week, every few days, the president puts out a big declaration, a broad intention of things he'd like to see in the world, an executive order on paper straws or a rant against Tylenau, the Riviera of the Middle East.

And it becomes the job of the people who work for the president to figure out the practical details of if and how these things could actually happen. But then there are also people like Sam, an ordinary person who's not in the government, but who is tireless, skilled, and paying attention. Someone with the confidence to say, I think this is what you mean here, right? When the administration issued this executive order in February, this wasn't the plan. They didn't know Sam was out there. She didn't know they were going to do this. But once the opportunity existed, there was Sam, willing to work with what was there to make this a reality,

to turn it in to a win. Hannah Jaffe-Walt, is one of the producers of our show, Nancy Opdyke, edited her story. Just this week, the Trump administration published its effect. number of how many refugees the United States is going to take in the next year. The number is 7,500, a record glow. And usually, the number is for people from all over the world. This year, it'll mostly just be South Africans. Moving, it's moving me up. Every step is moving me up.

While program was produced today by Nancy Updak, Diane Will and Hannah Jaffe-Walt, the people who put together today's show include Fia Bennon, Michael Comite, Aviva to Cornfield, Suzanne Gabbar, Sophie Gill, Catherine Raimondo, Stone Nelson, Nadia Raymond, Ryan Rummory, Francis Swanson, Christopher Sotala, and Julie Whitaker, Our managing editor, Sarah Abdur Rahman, our senior editors, David Kestenbaum. Our executive editor is Emmanuel Barry. Special thanks today to Adrian Alman, Angel Hurd, Lanier Crude, DeAndre Norman, John Nelson, San Diego Swanee, Timothy Young and International Refuge. Chris George, Brian Kahn, Sarah Jaffe, and Geraldine Eiffel.

This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange. A reminder that if you like our show, if you listen to us a lot, please consider signing up as a This American Life partner. Do it for the stuff you get, or do it simply because you want us to be able to keep making the show. Join at This AmericanLife.org slash Life Partners. Thanks this week to Life Partners, Roland Moore, Mark Kim, Christine Woodhouse, and Ross Boucher. Thanks as always to our program's co-founder, Mr. Tori Malatia, who, for some reason, always gets lots of questions from people this time of year about trick-or-treating. I'm 56, aren't I too old? or, you know, am I allowed to bring my dogs?

I remember glass. Back next week with more stories of this American life. That's moving me on Oh, it's moving me on One tiny tiny move Oh it's all I'm just all I need