LONDON, Jan 30 — British athletics legend Mo Farah yesterday said he was “relieved” to be exempt from an immigration clampdown by US President Donald Trump, while asserting he “fundamentally disagrees” with the policy.
Double-double Olympic champion Farah was born in Somalia but has lived in Britain since the age of eight, and was knighted by the Queen this year for his services to British sport.
Farah and his family are based in Oregon but he is currently training in Ethiopia, prompting concern that the athlete would be affected by Trump’s entry ban for people from seven Muslim majority countries, including Somalia.
“On January 1 this year, Her Majesty The Queen made me a Knight of the Realm. On January 27, President Donald Trump seems to have made me an alien,” he wrote on Facebook earlier yesterday.
“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,” he wrote.
“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.”
Hours after Farah’s post the British government announced it had secured assurances that Trump’s executive order would not apply to its citizens or dual nationals, unless they travelled directly to the US from one of the seven listed countries — Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Yemen and Sudan.
Following the foreign ministry advice a spokeswoman for Farah said he was “relieved” the order would not apply to him.
“Mo is relieved that he will be able to return to his family once his current training camp concludes. However, as he said in his earlier statement, he still fundamentally disagrees with this incredibly divisive and discriminatory policy,” the spokeswoman said.
Protests against Trump’s crackdown are planned across Britain today, while an online petition to prevent the US president making a state visit to London has gathered more than 800,000 signatures. — AFP
