Sir Mo Farah calls Trump's Muslim and refugee ban 'ignorance and prejudice'

Olympic medallist Sir Mo Farah has spoken out his against the US travel ban preventing residents from seven Muslim-majority countries entering the US, with fears that he might not be able to return to the country to see his children.

The ban, which Trump imposed on Saturday (29 January), has seen residents and refugees from seven countries, including Iran, Iraq and Libya, prohibited from entering the US for at least 90 days. Syrian refugees have been banned indefinitely.

Farah, who holds dual British-Somali nationality and lives in Oregon, with his wife and four children, was training in Ethiopia when the ban came into action.

Writing on his Facebook page, the long-distance runner said: "On 1 January this year, Her Majesty the Queen made me a knight of the Realm. On 27 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."

Nadim Zahawi, Conservative MP for Stratford-Upon-Avon, fears that as an Iraqi-born Brit, he will end up a victim of the ban.

Speaking about the order on BBC One's Andrew Marr Show, the politician said: "I don't think I have felt discriminated since little school when the kids were very cruel, as a young boy coming from Iraq of Kurdish origin.

"For the first time in my life last night I felt discriminated against, it's demeaning, it's sad."

However, Zahawi refused to criticise Prime Minister Theresa May for not condemning Trump's order, as other world leaders have done.

In a report from The Telegraph, figures show that more than 250,000 people who were born in Iraq, Iran and Somalia have dual British nationality, and are now banned from entering the US.