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Angelina Jolie is the most recent Hollywood heavyweight to raise her voice against President Donald Trump’s temporary denial of U.S. entry to those from seven primarily Muslim countries.
While most A-listers took to social media or even attended award’s nights to express their outrage, Jolie used the Op-Ed pages from the New York Times.
“Americans have shed blood to defend the idea that human rights transcend culture,” Jolie writes in a column published on the Times website.
Below is the beginning of Jolie’s Op-Ed, which is also set to be published in the US Friday’s print edition of the Times:
Refugees are men, women and children caught in the fury of war, or the cross hairs of persecution. Far from being terrorists, they are often the victims of terrorism themselves.
I’m proud of our country’s history of giving shelter to the most vulnerable people. 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.
The global refugee crisis and the threat from terrorism make it entirely justifiable that we consider how best to secure our borders. Every government must balance the needs of its citizens with its international responsibilities. But our response must be measured and should be 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. 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.
It is simply not true that our borders are overrun or that refugees are admitted to the United States without close scrutiny.
Fans can read the rest of the column here.
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