“Donald Trump… made me an alien”

henry tapper

7 years ago

Our hero – of whom we’re proud

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.

Mo Farah, Facebook (Jan 27)

This post is something I, as a British National, feel proud of and – as a human being- I am saddened by.

Putting aside the arguments about why Pakistan, the UAE and Saudi were not on the list of prohibited nationalities, let’s focus on why countries such as Somalia were. The reason is that to ordinary Americans, most of whom have no day to day contact with nationals of these countries, Trump’s word goes.

When you are appealing to people in such an anti-intelligent way, making intelligent arguments against policies like this, merely deepens the prejudice.

This is not making America great again, it is diminishing it in the eyes of grown up nations who recognise it is not in global interests to put down the weak. It is in all our interests to make countries such as Somalia strong and self-sufficient.

We enjoy diversity, it’s not just sport, it’s business and it’s a social thing. I would give a lot to understand and harness for myself, the spirit that drove Mo to his medals and encourages his countrymen and women to re-start their lives in the UK with such effect.

We do not have a security threat from immigrants so much as from emigrants. The radicals who leave our shores for conflict zones in the middle east, Asia and Africa are a concern, the refugees we are taking from those countries are not.

It was a shame that Nigel Farage and others gave support to America’s new policies on immigration. The origination of people should not, even on a temporary basis, be grounds for their exclusion from any country, America already has the right to ban individuals who pose an existential threat to their homeland- that is quite enough.

While we think of Mo Farah as “a British Somali” or even a “Somali born Britain”, we encourage the alienation. Farah, and millions like him, are as much British as I am. Indeed, his knighthood marks him out as a special Briton who we honour above others.

That the American authorities have now conceded the likes of Mo to enter America from Britain with a British passport makes no difference to this very fundamental issue.

I hope that in the weeks and months to come, British Government, business and ordinary people will make it absolutely clear that the banning of people from entering the United States legitimately, on grounds of origin is deeply offensive to our Britishness and is not something that we consider acceptable in a special relationship.

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