Team USA curling star Rich Ruohonen is blasting the Trump administration over its use of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in his native Minnesota.
Ruohonen is a personal injury lawyer at TSR Injury Law in the city of Bloomington and is making his debut as the oldest athlete to ever represent the US in a Winter Olympics at the age of 54.
American athletes have been using the Winter Olympics as a platform to express their beliefs and Ruohonen was unflinching in his criticism of the recent actions of ICE agents in Minneapolis that led to the killing of two civilians.
At a Tuesday press conference, the moderator for USA Curling opened the floor to the athletes if they wished to say anything that hadn’t been covered in the reporter’s questions. Ruohonen didn’t hold back.
‘I’m proud to be here to represent Team USA, and to represent our country. But we’d be remiss if we didn’t at least mention what’s going on in Minnesota and what a tough time it’s been for everybody. This stuff is happening right, right around where we live,’ Ruohonen said.
‘I am a lawyer, as you know, and we have a constitution,’ Ruohonen continued, ‘and it allows us to (have) freedom of press, freedom of speech, protects us from unreasonable searches and seizures, and makes it that we have to have probable cause to be pulled over.
‘And what’s happening in Minnesota is wrong. There’s no shades of grey. It’s clear.’
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