When Leftists Suddenly Turn Anti-Immigration

Your Morning Brief today starts with some helpful news. As you grow older, your nutritional requirements change. Do you know how to properly fuel your body? Our feature story, “Eat Right for Your Age,” by holistic nutritionist Jorg Mardian, gives some practical guidelines.

Do Episcopalians have something against white immigrants? For all his efforts to close America’s borders, President Trump has taken one initiative to support immigration into the U.S.: offering South African farmers a “rapid pathway to citizenship.” About four dozen Afrikaners—a white ethnic minority in South Africa—arrived in D.C. on a chartered flight yesterday under this initiative. They will resettle across 10 states.

• Trump has granted refugee status to these families in response to racially motivated attacks against whites in South Africa. He has said South Africa is a “bad place to be right now” due to land confiscation and violence.
• South African officials, including President Cyril Ramaphosa, call Trump’s claims misinformation. The government insists its efforts to put more land in the hands of black South Africans has happened without arbitrary land confiscations or racial violence. Ramaphosa rejects data and says there are no farm murders of whites in his country.

In February, Trumpet World host Richard Palmer interviewed Ernst van Zyl, head of public relations at AfriForum. It is worth watching. He details how aggressive the government has been in working to strip farmers of their land, how it has ignored public calls for violence and covered up crimes, and how it has been abetted by a sympathetic global press. It is difficult to get accurate statistics, but AfriForum estimates there is an average of one farm murder per week, many of which involve torture, and five to six farm attacks.

These South African families who accepted Trump’s offer are genuinely persecuted. They are not criminals and gang members, and they will be an asset to the United States. But critics say Trump reaching out specifically to whites is a “cruel racial twist” to U.S. refugee policy.

Among those who don’t like it is the Episcopal Church. Episcopal Migration Ministries receives a federal grant to help resettle refugees. The program has resettled some 110,000 refugees from diverse nations like Ukraine and Congo. The church is known for its historical support for undocumented immigrants and sanctuary cities, which shield migrants from deportation. Under the terms of its federal grant, EMM would have to help this handful of South African families. But rather than do that, it decided to end its 40-year federal partnership.

• Sean W. Rowe, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, said that when they learned that “under the terms of our federal grant, we are expected to resettle white Afrikaners from South Africa whom the U.S. government has classified as refugees,” they couldn’t do it. “In light of our church’s steadfast commitment to racial justice and reconciliation and our historic ties with the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, we are not able to take this step. Accordingly, we have determined that, by the end of the federal fiscal year, we will conclude our refugee resettlement grant agreements with the U.S. federal government.”

It’s a stunning picture of the selective compassion that defines much of the left, and even a good part of religion in America today. These people would rather cancel their entire program than resettle 50 white people. If this was a trap Trump laid to expose their hypocrisy, they walked right into it.

Trump is in Saudi Arabia today: As in his first term, President Trump’s first visit to the Middle East is again to Saudi Arabia, the de facto ruler of the entire Gulf. Meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, he wants to secure major economic investments and strengthen bilateral ties, focusing on business deals rather than traditional diplomacy. The visit highlights his transactional America First agenda. There is money to be had, and Trump is going to go get it.

• His entourage included a host of American businessmen, including Elon Musk and executives from Google, Nvidia and BlackRock.
• He aims to finalize agreements potentially worth up to $1 trillion, including investments in U.S. companies across sectors like defense, aviation, energy and AI.
• Saudi Arabia has pledged to invest $600 billion in the U.S. over four years. Trump is pushing for more.

Notably, the four-day visit to the region won’t include a stop in Israel. No matter how this is painted, it looks like Trump is purposefully snubbing Netanyahu. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was initially going to stop in Israel in a face-saving gesture, but Trump stopped that at the last minute, saying he wanted him on Air Force One. The president knows the optics look bad, but he doesn’t seem to care.

For all the complaints about Barack Obama putting “daylight” between Israel and the U.S., President Trump seems to be following a path that leads to the same end. As good as this Mideast trip may be for America’s pocketbook, it is toxic to the Trump-Netanyahu relationship. The two continue to play nice in public, but the tension is reaching a crisis point.

How soon before Israel starts looking to Germany for help, as the Bible prophesies? Perhaps that is what Trump has wanted all along.

IN OTHER NEWS

Cyprus will join the Schengen Area next year, President Nikos Christodoulides declared on Sunday. Cyprus has been an EU member since 2004, but membership in the Schengen Area, the European Union’s passport-free travel zone, has been considered impossible. It is divided by a UN-patrolled buffer zone separating the Republic of Cyprus in the south from the Turkish-occupied north. If Cyprus joins the Schengen Area, the Green Line would become an EU external border, requiring enhanced border controls. It would also require Cyprus to formally admit that it doesn’t have sovereignty past the dividing line. So many questions remain, but if implemented it would certainly bring Cyprus closer to the EU—a prize Europe has long sought.

Germany banned the “Königreich Deutschland” today, the largest faction of the Reichsbürger movement, an extremist group rejecting the legitimacy of the modern German state. The government conducted raids across seven states, arresting four leaders, including self-proclaimed “King” Peter Fitzek. Josué Michels wrote about this group back in 2022 and the extremism that is always just under the surface in Germany.

Another Russian military buildup: Satellite images show Russia is building up its military along Finland’s eastern border, Peter van Halteren reports. What good are peace talks with Putin while he continues such provocations?

Asian war games: China and Cambodia will begin their annual two-week-long “Golden Dragon” military exercises tomorrow, our In Brief reports. Expect such military partnerships within Asia to multiply and strengthen.