New England Revolution striker and former refugee Kei Kamara speaks out against Trump’s immigration order
President Donald Trump’s immigration order sent shockwaves through both the Boston area and sports community over the weekend. At the intersection of those two worlds is Kei Kamara.
A Muslim refugee-turned-striker for the New England Revolution, Kamara could have been blocked from coming to the United States under Trump’s executive order.
Trump’s order blocks all refugees from entering the United States for 120 days, indefinitely bans refugees from Syria, and implements a 90-day ban on citizens from seven predominantly Muslim countries: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. It also effectively prioritizes Christian refugees over Muslim ones, by giving preference to claims of “religious-based persecution, provided that the religion of the individual is a minority religion in the individual’s country of nationality.”
In a Instagram post Sunday, Kamara said Trump’s order defied the values of his newly adopted home country.
“I was a Muslim refugee (2000) and a Muslim citizen today (2017)….This is the UNITED States of America,” he wrote.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BP2nzITgbQt/
Kamara was born in Kenema, Sierra Leone, where he grew up playing soccer amid the country’s decade-long civil war. Kamara told CNN in 2015 that he witnessed haunting executions as young child. As a 16-year-old in 2000, Kamara was able to move to the United States through a refugee program to live with family outside Los Angeles, where he attended college and flowered as a soccer player at California State University, Dominguez Hills.
Now an American citizen, the athletic 32-year-old forward is an established presence in the MLS with the 12th most career goals in league history (86). After playing with the Columbus Crew and Sporting Kansas City for the majority of his career, he was traded to the Revolution last May. In 2015, he was named the league’s Humanitarian of the Year for his work rebuilding schools back home in Sierra Leone. Kamara remains a practicing Muslim.
The Washington Post reports that Trump’s order Friday does not directly affect any MLS players, but complicates the league’s efforts to attract international players.
