Hollywood actor Angelina Jolie has slammed US President Donald Trump’s executive order banning citizens of seven Muslim countries from travelling to the US.
She said that that discriminating against refugees for their religion or country of origin “invites the very instability we seek to protect ourselves against.”
She said that the US decision to suspend refugee resettlements and visits from several Muslim-majority countries isn’t the American way.
“Every time we depart from our values we worsen the very problem we are trying to contain,” Jolie said. “We must never allow our values to become the collateral damage of a search for greater security. Shutting our door to refugees or discriminating among them is not our way, and does not make us safer,” the actress adds.
A special envoy for the United Nations High Commissioner of Refugees since 2012, Jolie says refugees recommended for resettlement are often survivors of terrorism and torture or may be in need of advanced medical care. Refugees seeking entry to the U.S. already undergo extensive screening by various federal agencies,” she writes.
The actress, whose six children were all born outside of the US also used the editorial to warn President Trump. “If we send a message that it is acceptable to close the door to refugees, or to discriminate among them on the basis of religion, we are playing with fire,” Jolie writes. “We are lighting a fuse that will burn across continents,” she cautions.
