Angelina Jolie just issued a powerful condemnation of Donald Trump's Muslim ban

By Rafi Schwartz  |  February 2, 2017 | 10:49pm
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On Thursday, actress and activist Angelina Jolie published an impassioned letter slamming President Donald Trump’s efforts to tighten—and in many cases, halt entirely—immigration into the United States.

“I’m proud of our country’s history of giving shelter to the most vulnerable people,” Jolie wrote in her essay, which was printed in the New York Times. “Americans have shed blood to defend the idea that human rights transcend culture, geography, ethnicity and religion. The decision to suspend the resettlement of refugees to the United States and deny entry to citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries has been met with shock by our friends around the world precisely because of this record.”

Jolie explained that her experience adopting children from across the world has helped motivate her in her desire to see a refugee policy based on “facts, not fear.”

“As the mother of six children, who were all born in foreign lands and are proud American citizens, I very much want our country to be safe for them, and all our nation’s children,” she said. “But I also want to know that refugee children who qualify for asylum will always have a chance to plead their case to a compassionate America. And that we can manage our security without writing off citizens of entire countries — even babies — as unsafe to visit our country by virtue of geography or religion.”

Jolie has long been an advocate for displaced peoples, having been appointed a special envoy to the United Nations Refugee Agency in 2012, after serving more than a decade as a goodwill ambassador for the organization.

Read the full op-ed here.

 
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