Theresa May orders ministers to press U.S. counterparts on Trump order

President Trump and Prime Minister May
(Image credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images)

After initially declining to comment on President Trump's executive order suspending U.S. entry from seven majority-Muslim countries as well as all refugee admissions, conservative British Prime Minister Theresa May on Sunday asked Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and Home Secretary Amber Rudd to contact their American counterparts and push back on the rule. Johnson will speak with the U.S. State Department, and Rudd will reach out to Homeland Security.

May does "not agree with this kind of approach and it is not one we will be taking," said a statement from Downing Street. If the order impacts anyone from the United Kingdom, the statement continued, "then clearly we will make representations to the U.S. government about that." High-profile Britons who could be affected by the ban include Somali-born Olympic distance runner Sir Mo Farah and Tory MP Nadhim Zahawi, who was born in Iraq. Both have dual citizenship.

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.