Dr Ernst Roets, executive director of Lex Libertas, is organising a display of 3 000 white crosses in front of the United States Capitol later in September.

Roets says the project is meant to show the reality of farm murders in a highly visible location.

Each cross is expected to represent a person who was killed.

The project is being organised by Lex Libertas and the New York Young Republican Club.

It is being presented as a campaign to raise awareness, propose solutions and gather international support.

Project backs self-governance

The White Cross Project says it supports Afrikaners and South African communities.

The project advocates peaceful “decentralisation and self-governance”.

That aim has raised questions about whether the campaign is linked to wider claims about “white genocide” in South Africa.

The project also comes amid renewed debate over how South Africa is portrayed internationally.

Roets has been criticised for repeatedly presenting South Africa as a country ruled or populated by dangerous people.

US refugee policy questioned

A commentary published by Harvard University’s Carr-Ryan Centre for Human Rights questioned the Trump administration’s decision to admit a small group of white Afrikaans-speaking South Africans as refugees.

It suggested the move may be driven more by political and racial agendas than humanitarian concerns.

The commentary contrasted this with how the US has treated refugees from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

It also referred to the use of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to speed up deportations with limited due process.

Welcome packs spark criticism

Reports claim white South Africans entering the US as refugees may receive an Android tablet, an American flag, copies of the US Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

The material reportedly also includes literature criticising racial equity laws and claiming discrimination against white people.

Critics argue that this framing does not reflect South Africa’s broader inequality and crime realities.

Many poor people in South Africa remain black, while black South Africans also make up many victims of violent crime.

Claims of targeted victimisation of white Afrikaners remain deeply contested.

Land expropriation without compensation has also not been enforced.