Jodie Foster calls on America to 'resist' Donald Trump's immigration clampdown at Hollywood rally

Saphora Smith25 February 2017

As Hollywood prepared for the Oscars on Sunday celebrities such as Jodie Foster and Michael J Fox rallied in Beverly Hills against the current “anti-immigration sentiment" in the United States.

Top talent firm United Talent Agency (UTA) organised the rally, which was attended by over a thousand people, instead of holding their annual Oscars party.

Ms Foster told the crowd the assaults on freedom of expression and civil liberties was a start of an attack on democracy, saying "this is our time to resist."

She said she has never been comfortable using her public face for activism and has always found the small ways to serve, but that this year is different.

"It's time to show up. It's a singular time in history. It's time to engage" she said, "and as the very, very dead Frederick Douglass once said `any time is a good time for illumination."'

Plea: Jodie Foster 
Getty Images

Other speakers included Keegan-Michael Key who said the event was intended to "support the creative community's growing concern with anti-immigration sentiment in the United States of America and its potential chilling effect on the global exchange of ideas, not to mention freedom of expression."

He welcomed all, including a handful of Trump supporters, because he said "this is America, where you get to believe what you want."

One Trump supporter walked through the crowd in a Make America Great Again hat early on saying "you're not going to block me."

For the most part, however, the crowd was subdued, civil and attentive to the celebrity speakers.

Michael J. Fox, who became a United States citizen some 20 years ago, remembered being annoyed at the 8-year process to citizenship and now wonders what he was complaining about.

Turning immigrants away, Mr Fox said, is "an assault on human dignity."

The Oscar-nominated Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi also spoke via video from Tehran to praise the show of unity among the cinema community.

Mr Farhadi previously said he would boycott Sunday's ceremony as a result of President Donald Trump's Muslim travel ban.

"It is comforting to know that at a time when some politicians are trying to promote hate by creating divisions between cultures, religions and nationalities, the cinema community has joined the people in a common show of unity to announce its opposition," Mr Farhadi said.

"I hope this unity will continue and spread to fight other injustices."

David Miliband, the former British foreign secretary and current head of International Rescue Committee also spoke at the rally.

Mr Miliband said: "The executive order that was published in Washington three weeks ago was one story of America. Today, this rally in Hollywood is telling another story.

"It's a story of humanity, a story of reason, a story of patriotism."

UTA previously announced that it was donating £200,600 to the ACLU and the International Rescue Committee and has set up a crowd funding page to solicit more donations.

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