The former US Secretary of State has announced that she “stands ready to register as a Muslim”, after a report that Donald Trump plans to temporarily suspend the issue of visas to seven Muslim countries.
Madeleine Albright tweeted: "I was raised Catholic, became Episcopalian & found out later my family was Jewish. I stand ready to register as Muslim in #solidarity."
Ms Albright also tweeted that: “There is no fine print on the Statue of Liberty. America must remain open to people of all faiths & backgrounds. #RefugeesWelcome”. The tweet is a reference to the poem attached to the base of the statue, which was written by Emma Lazarus, a Jewish-American poet. Ms Albright included a picture of an excerpt from the poem,:
Mr Trump also said during his campaign that he would require Muslims in the US to register on a database, a statement he has since denied..
There is no fine print on the Statue of Liberty. America must remain open to people of all faiths & backgrounds. #RefugeesWelcome pic.twitter.com/4LvMiZTRJJ
— Madeleine Albright (@madeleine) January 25, 2017
Speaking at during last Saturday’s Women’s March on Washington, Gloria Steinem, the Second Wave feminist leader, said: "If you force Muslims to register, we will all register as Muslims,” receiving a cheer from the crowd.
Ms Steinem, whose father was Jewish, had many members of her family escape the Holocaust because her grandmother, Pauline Perlmutter Steinem managed to rescue them from Germany in the mid-1930’s.