Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright issued a scathing rebuke on Thursday of an executive order under consideration by President Trump that would tighten the United States’ refugee resettlement program and ban certain refugees from coming to the country.
If the executive order becomes law, Alright wrote in a lengthy Facebook post, it would undermine the country’s core values, compromise its security interests and play into an international fear-mongering campaign that propagates the idea that refugees are too often terrorists.
“Refugees should not be viewed as a certain burden or potential terrorists,” she wrote. “They have already made great contributions to our national life. Syrian refugees are learning English, getting good jobs, buying homes, and starting businesses.
{mosads}“In other words, they are doing what other generations of refugees — including my own — did.”
Albright discussed her own background as a refugee who fled communism in Czechoslovakia and was welcomed in the U.S. She argued that refugees from Syria should be similarly welcomed and would “become an essential part of our American fabric.”
The Facebook post came a day after reports surfaced that Trump was considering a sweeping executive action that would ban refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries from being resettled in the U.S., as well as halt the country’s refugee resettlement program for 120 days.
On the campaign trail, Trump called for a federal ban on all foreign Muslims entering the U.S., later revising the proposal to only target certain countries. Trump has argued that terrorists are using refugee resettlement as a kind of Trojan horse to enter the country.
“You’re looking at people that come in in many cases with evil intentions,” Trump told ABC anchor David Muir in an interview that aired Wednesday. “I don’t want that. They’re ISIS. They’re coming in under false pretense. I don’t want that.”
Albright, the first woman to head the State Department, made headlines on Wednesday when she declared she was prepared to register as a Muslim if Trump implemented a proposed Muslim registry.
“I was raised Catholic, became Episcopalian & found out later my family was Jewish. I stand ready to register as Muslim in #solidarity,” Albright tweeted.