GettySir Mo Farah, four time British Olympiad and a newly crowned Knight of the Realm, has spoken out against Trump’s Muslim Ban which would stop him from travelling to his home in America.
President Donald Trump’s recently introduced a bill to ban refugees from seven Muslim countries, as well as banning American citizens with dual nationality.
Farah, originally from Somalia, now lives with his family in the US and has released a statement making the point that his ‘story is an example of what can happen when you follow polices of compassion and understanding, not hate and isolation’, the Guardian reports.
GettyThough the bill has been temporarily blocked by a federal judge, it would impact the lives of so many, and made one of Britain’s greatest athletes an ‘alien’.
Mo’s full statement read:
On 1st January this year, Her Majesty The Queen made me a Knight of the Realm. On 27th January, President Donald Trump seems to have made me an alien.
I am a British citizen who has lived in America for the past six years – working hard, contributing to society, paying my taxes and bringing up our four children in the place they now call home.
Now, me and many others like me are being told that we may not be welcome.
It’s deeply troubling that I will have to tell my children that daddy might not be able to come home – to explain why the president has introduced a policy that comes from a place of ignorance and prejudice.
I was welcomed into Britain from Somalia at eight years old and given the chance to succeed and realise my dreams.
I have been proud to represent my country, win medals for the British people and receive the greatest honour of a knighthood.
My story is an example of what can happen when you follow polices of compassion and understanding, not hate and isolation.
GettyFarah is a British citizen with a British passport who does not have dual nationality or hold a Somalian passport. However, he was born in Somalia before moving to the UK at the age of eight and becoming a British citizen, which makes him a victim of Trump’s policy, the Guardian reports.
Alan Watkinson, the PE teacher who discovered Farah as a schoolboy, has praised his ‘strong values’, saying ‘while Mo is the most high profile case, the whole policy is complete crackers and hopefully his case will highlight how ridiculous this blanket ban against Muslims is’.
