FIRST ON FOX: The United States is set to welcome 49 white South African refugees who are victims of "government-sponsored racial discrimination" in their homeland, according to the State Department. 

The U.S.-chartered flight touched down at Dulles Airport in Virginia on Monday afternoon, when Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau welcomed the group of Afrikaners. 

"Faced with undeniable government-sponsored racial discrimination in South Africa, the first Afrikaner refugees have arrived in the United States," a senior State Department official said in an exclusive statement to Fox News Digital. 

"The U.S. Refugee Admissions Program was intended for situations like this. Under President Trump's strong leadership, the State Department has helped to provide a new life for these refugees in America, where they will live in freedom, safety, and opportunity."

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President Donald Trump first initiated their resettlement with an executive order entitled, "Addressing Egregious Actions of the Republic of South Africa," directing the State Department to bump up Afrikaners to the front of the line for resettlement. 

South Africans are now able to submit a statement of interest with the U.S. embassy in Pretoria, which will review the documents and contact those who are eligible for the interview process. 

Trump has virtually halted the refugee program for those from war- and famine-ravaged nations like Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. White South Africans say they have been denied jobs and targeted for violence on account of their race. 

Trump’s executive order came in response to a law passed by the South African government allowing it to take private land for public use, sometimes without compensation. Trump claimed the law would be used to target South Africa’s White minority Afrikaner group, descended from Dutch and other European settlers who arrived more than 300 years ago. 

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The South African foreign ministry said claims that White South Africans faced a "well-founded fear of persecution" were "unfounded." 

"It is most regrettable that it appears that the resettlement of South Africans to the United States under the guise of being ‘refugees’ is entirely politically motivated and designed to question South Africa’s constitutional democracy; a country which has in fact suffered true persecution under Apartheid rule and has worked tirelessly to prevent such levels of discrimination from ever occurring again," spokesperson Chrispin Phiri at the Ministry of International Relations and Cooperation added. 

The Afrikaners’ arrival comes as Trump tries to push back on the racial politics of South Africa, where adviser Elon Musk grew up during apartheid. 

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The Afrikaner families traveling to the U.S. are largely from farming communities. 

Since apartheid ended in the 1990s, South Africa has sought to atone for segregationist policies, including with the land redistribution law signed in January. The policy came after a 2017 audit found that White South Africans owned three-quarters of individually-owned farms and agricultural property, while making up 7% of the population. Black South Africans had been denied the right to own prime agricultural land during the apartheid era.

A Democratic National Committee (DNC) vice chairman fired up a crowd outside Philadelphia on Saturday after calling President Donald Trump a "punk" and accusing his administration of modern-day book burning for adjusting content on government websites.

"There is a strategy of authoritarians and would-be dictators and punks like Donald Trump," Malcolm Kenyatta said at a town hall in Levittown that was officially targeting swing-district Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa.

As part of that "strategy," Kenyatta said, "one of the first things they go after is history."

"We know that before, they used to take the books, put them in a little pile and burn them. Now they try to delete stuff off of our federal websites. But the effect is the same. They want us to forget what we are made of," he went on, in a clip circulated by the left-leaning outlet "The Keystone."

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Since taking office, Trump has overseen agencies that have altered or removed content relating to DEI, climate change and gender ideology.

"Donald Trump is not the first bully or would-be authoritarian that Americans have taken on. We know it here in Pennsylvania. We don't have a good relationship with kings," he said, as Penn’s Woods was founded by Quakers and other religious exiles fed up with European authoritarians. "I'm not bowing to a king."

Kenyatta is also the state representative for the Temple University area of North Philadelphia, and the first openly gay person of color to serve in Harrisburg.

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He added that "people like Fitzpatrick" lack the "guts" to stand up to Trump.

At another recent appearance in Berks County – which includes Reading and Hamburg – Kenyatta railed against the arrest of Newark, New Jersey, Mayor Ras Baraka at an ICE detention facility there.

"He was peacefully protesting and speaking up for his constituents and his neighbors. He wasn't inciting an insurrection… because if he was doing that, they might have offered him a position in the Cabinet," Kenyatta said.

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Kenyatta notably finished third in the 2022 Pennsylvania Senate primary won by Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., and unsuccessfully ran for auditor general in 2024 against GOP incumbent Timothy DeFoor.

White House spokesperson Harrison Fields responded Monday, telling Fox News Digital that Kenyatta is a "no-name state representative who was trounced in the Pennsylvania Senate primary due to his radical and unserious positions."

"The prominence the Democrat Party affords him reflects the party's disarray and desire to satisfy its radical base," Fields said.

Fox News Digital reached out to Fitzpatrick for comment.