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Mo Farah leads sports criticism of Trump’s U.S. restrictions

By Editor
01 February 2017   |   1:44 am
Four-time Olympic athletics champion, Sir Mo Farah, has fiercely criticised United States President Donald Trump’s controversial executive order limiting immigration, as the sports world seeks...
Britain's Mo Farah does his 'mobot' celebration after winning the men's elite race in the Great North Run half-marathon in South Shields, north east England on September 11, 2016. The Great North Run is Britain's largest running event with more than 50,000 participants set to cover the 13.1 miles from Newcastle to South Shields. PHOTO: Lindsey PARNABY / AFP

Britain’s Mo Farah does his ‘mobot’ celebration after winning the men’s elite race in the Great North Run half-marathon in South Shields, north east England on September 11, 2016. The Great North Run is Britain’s largest running event with more than 50,000 participants set to cover the 13.1 miles from Newcastle to South Shields. PHOTO: Lindsey PARNABY / AFP

Four-time Olympic athletics champion, Sir Mo Farah, has fiercely criticised United States President Donald Trump’s controversial executive order limiting immigration, as the sports world seeks to understand possible consequences, reports insidethegames.biz.

It has, however, now been clarified by the British Foreign Office how Sir Mo and others in his position will supposedly only be affected if travelling to the US from one of the countries specifically targeted.

Trump, who was inaugurated as the 45th President of the United States earlier this month, signed an executive order which prohibits citizens from the seven Muslim-majority countries – Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Yemen, Iraq, Iran and Libya – from entering the country for a 90-day period.

The ruling has been fiercely criticised around the world and Iran has already launched retaliatory restrictions on US nationals.

It is not yet completely clear how extensive the restrictions, which are currently only a 90-day temporary measure, will be. But citizens from the seven countries have already been prevented from entering the US.

Mo, who won 5,000 and 10,000 metres gold medals at the London 2012 and Rio 2016 Olympics, was born in Somalian capital Mogadishu and grew up in neighbouring Djibouti before moving to Britain at the age of eight.

In 2011, he and his family moved to Portland, Oregon in order to train with US coach Alberto Salazar.

He is now a full British national and does not hold a Somalian passport.

The 33-year-old, who is currently at a training camp in Ethiopia, has admitted to being unsure if he will be allowed to return home before the clarification was made.

“On January 1 this year, Her Majesty The Queen made me a Knight of the Realm,” the five-time world champion posted on Facebook today.

“On January 27, 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.

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