Netflix CEO Reed Hastings issued a stern statement on Saturday decrying Donald Trump’s new executive order banning refugees from seven mostly-Muslim countries from entering the U.S.
“Trump’s actions are hurting Netflix employees around the world, and are so un-American it pains us all,” Hastings said in a brief statement on Facebook.
He went on to argue that Trump’s “actions will make America less safe (through hatred and loss of allies) rather than more safe.”
He also called Trump’s first seven days in office “a very sad week, and more to come with the lives of over 600,000 Dreamers here in a America under imminent threat” — a reference to young people brought to the country illegally as children but who have received some protections under the DREAM Act.
“It is time to link arms together to protect American values of freedom and opportunity,” Hastings added.
Trump’s executive order sparked protests at airports around the country, including JFK, Dulles and LAX. In some cases, refugees and visa holders were being denied entry into the country even though they had legal claims to entry when their flights took off.
The Motion Picture Academy on Saturday issued a statement calling Trump’s action “extremely troubling” and noted that “Asghar Farhadi, the director of the Oscar-winning film from Iran ‘A Separation,’ along with the cast and crew of this year’s Oscar-nominated film ‘The Salesman,’ could be barred from entering the country because of their religion or country of origin.”
Other tech giants have also come out against the executive order. Google recalled its overseas employees, ordering its overseas staffers to return to the United States immediately, according to the Washington Post.