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Marco Rubio Just Made A Claim About Immigration That’s One Heck Of A ‘Dog Whistle,’ Experts Say

Secretary of State Marco Rubio just made a comment about immigration that sounded like a dog whistle, according to academics who study migration and race.

Under questioning from Rep. Grace Meng (D-N.Y.) during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Tuesday, Rubio said the United States is giving white South Africans a privileged immigration pathway because they have a “high likelihood of assimilation.”

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Meng asked Rubio about the Trump administration’s decision to raise the refugee cap from 7,500 to 17,500 ― but only for Afrikaners, South Africa’s White minority, whom the administration says face racial persecution, a claim the South African government disputes.

President Donald Trump has “rolled out the red carpet” for white South Africans, Meng said, contrasting that policy with the treatment of roughly 1,100 Afghans who assisted U.S. forces during the war in Afghanistan and have been stranded in Qatar for more than a year. The administration has reportedly considered resettling that group to the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo rather than allowing them into the U.S. The DRC is also grappling with an Ebola outbreak.

Rubio argued that Afrikaners ― a group who are descended primarily from Dutch colonists and are known for their role in establishing apartheid, a system of segregation that oppressed Black South Africans for decades ― are simply a good fit for the U.S. population.

“We have gauged that there is real interest from a unique subset of people in South Africa who would be interested to coming to the United States, and we assess would have a high likelihood of assimilation and success in our society,” he said, adding that it’s a short-term refugee resettlement program.

“It is in our national interest if we are allowing people into our country to be people that can quickly assimilate into society and be successful,” Rubio said.

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“But it’s 1,100 versus this new 17,500,” Meng responded, and the Afghans in her district have already integrated into their communities and pay taxes.

The United States, she argued, should “keep its promise” to vetted Afghan allies, including interpreters who worked with U.S. Special Operations Forces and the immediate family members of more than 150 active-duty U.S. service members.

Rubio’s statement is ‘clearly echoing the dog whistles’ of Trump, experts say.

As HuffPost previously reported, getting white South Africans resettled into the U.S. has been something of a pet cause for Trump since he was reelected. Even as the administration has attempted to block thousands of refugees from places like Afghanistan, Syria and Sudan from entering the U.S., they’ve made a unique and pointed exception for Afrikaner asylum applicants.

Trump and his South-Africa-born ally Elon Musk have repeatedly debunked claims that South African farmers are facing a “white genocide” in South Africa and deserving of special status.

These claims have been repeatedly fact-checked and rejected by South African authorities, international organizations and many white Afrikaner farmers themselves.

Newly arrived South Africans are welcomed by U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau in a hangar at Atlantic Aviation Dulles near Washington Dulles International Airport on May 12, 2025 in Dulles, Virginia. Dozens of white South Africans, also called Afrikaners, accepted an invitation from the Trump Administration to come to the United States as refugees.

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Loren Landau, a professor of migration and development at the University of Oxford in England, told HuffPost he suspects the Trump administration’s policy toward Afrikaners is intended as a message to two distinct audiences.

“First, as a snub to South Africa and its multicultural aspirations,” he said. Second, and more importantly, this is a signal to a MAGA base that the administration is saving white Christians from Black, woke heathens.”

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Landau noted that, as this is happening, the State Department is also in the midst of drastically reducing the number of U.S. embassies and consulates in Africa that can process visas for foreigners seeking to enter the U.S.

“This is part of a global sorting of worthy and unworthy, of people who have a future in a white Christian world and those who don’t,” Landau said. “It’s a direct spike in the heart of multilateralism and the idea of universal humanity and compassion that underlies it.”

As for the Afrikaners pursuing U.S. citizenship through Trump’s refugee program, Landau thinks it’s “fascinating” that a group that “could not integrate in their own country despite hundreds of years of privilege and strong equity laws might easily find their way elsewhere.”

Ernesto Castañeda, the director of the Immigration Lab at American University in Washington, D.C., said Rubio’s statements are “clearly echoing the dog whistles on immigration from Donald Trump.”

As for Rubio's comments this week, he made no efforts to

“Immigrants are fine if they come from ‘good’ countries such as Sweden, Norway, England, Scotland, Germany, but ‘bad’ for the U.S. if they come from ‘********’ countries with majority Black populations in Africa or the Caribbean,” Castañeda said of Trump’s rhetoric.

“We have the dog and cat-eating myth about Haitians, the ‘floating island of garbage’ reference to Puerto Rico in a campaign rally that Trump never disavowed, and attacks on Somalis in Minneapolis,” he told HuffPost.

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The “white genocide” claim complements other conspiracy theories popular in Trump world, the professor said, including “reverse discrimination” through DEI programs and the “great replacement theory,” the belief that nonwhite immigrants are “invading” Western countries to “replace” countries’ white population.

Taken in the aggregate, there’s a clear racial preference through-line in the Trump administration’s immigration policy, Castañeda said

Rubio previously sparred on the resettlement of white Afrikaners with Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) during a Senate hearing last May. Kaine claimed that the group was getting preferential treatment because they were white, contrasting the treatment of Afrikaners to how the Black majority in South Africa were treated by the U.S. during the apartheid era.

“There never has there been a special program for Africans to come in as refugees to the United States,” Kaine said, pointing out that special designations were allowed for people being persecuted for religious reasons under communist regimes.

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As for Rubio’s comments this week, he made no efforts to “disguise his racism” this time around, said Kari J. Winter, a professor of American studies at the University at Buffalo, whose expertise includes race.

“He repeatedly states that it is in the national interest of the United States to encourage white immigration,” she said. “MAGA appears to be shopping the planet to find the ‘unique subset’ that will grow its white supremacist base.”

Ultimately, integration and acculturation for immigrants are not determined by race or native language, but rather by processes that unfold over time, Castañeda said.

“I have researched the immigration process for over 20 years, as have dozens of colleagues,” he added, “and we know that work permits, access to education, and opportunities are what enable rapid acceleration, not someone’s skin color or country of birth.”