The Reverend Nontombi Naomi Tutu torched the Trump administration in a blistering op-ed Friday that denounced a decision to fast-track refugee status for white South Africans – which she blasted as a “grotesque falsification” of what it means to seek refuge.
Tutu, a South African-born Episcopal priest in Atlanta, praised the church’s decision to cut ties with a federal refugee resettlement program rather than “elevated a lie that will affect refugee resettlement for years to come.”
“The Episcopal Church has taken a moral stand,” she wrote Friday in an MSNBC op-ed. “The Boers who arrived on U.S. soil this week are not refugees. They are white people using their privilege to leap over legitimate refugees who have been waiting to escape political repression and life-threatening situations.”
Tutu, a dual citizen of the U.S. and South African, then scorched the MAGA administration.
“In welcoming them and expediting access to the U.S., the Trump administration has proved its racist bona fides,” Tutu wrote. “It has stopped the asylum of Afghans and Iraqis who fought alongside American troops only to resettle a group that views the loss of absolute domination of South Africa’s Black majority as oppression.”
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She went on to express her deep anger over the issue, while acknowledging she was “glaringly aware of how my anger will be perceived.”
“I considered tempering it. But this is a holy anger,” Tutu wrote. “And if I silence it, I harm not only myself but all those who are harmed by this grotesque falsification of what it means to be a refugee.”
Tutu concluded her piece Friday with a call to action.
“Far too often, we as the human family look back at injustices and evil and say, ‘We did not know,’” she told readers. “Future generations will not allow us to make that claim about our inaction in 2025.”