This article examines the dynamics between European emigration and the South African immigration policy and nation building in the years 1902-1961. It investigates changing ideas and regulations that promoted or impeded transnational mobility of certain national and ethnic categories of ’white’ migrants from Europe to South Africa, and it shows how Dutch emigration fitted into this pattern. A pattern that was determined by a controversy between advocates of an inclusive policy that aimed at opening up the country to white immigrants from all over Europe, and those who were in favour of an exclusive policy that was primarily concerned with strengthening their ‘own’ Protestant, Afrikaans political culture (protecting it from British, Jewish, and catholic influences). When the Dutch government found it necessary to stimulate Dutch emigration, it called on the alleged ‘kinship’ (stamverwantschap) between Dutch and Afrikaner part of the South African population to overcome the obstacles.Dutch newcomers soon were welcomed again to strengthen Afrikaner nationalism and thus support the Apartheid regime.