United States Department of State | Always Question Authority

The Freedom From Religion Foundation sent a letter to the U.S. State Department on July 25 to object to religious quotations printed on official United States passports. FFRF has been protesting religion in passports since 2007.

FFRF, a state/church watchdog based in Madison, Wis., is a national nonprofit with more than 19,000 members across the country.

Multiple quotes on the United States passport include religious references:

“May God continue the unity of our country as the railroad unites the two great ocean of the world.” Inscribed on the Golden Spike

“That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom.” Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln

“The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time.” Jefferson Memorial, Thomas Jefferson

“We have a great dream. It started way back in 1776, and God grant that America will be true to her dream.” Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Acclaimed Mexican author and thinker had visas denied and was tracked when he did visit US, newly public files reveal.

Carlos Fuentes, who died in 2012, was denied visas in the 1960s because US authorities regarded him as a communist subversive.

The FBI and US state department closely monitored the Mexican author Carlos Fuentes for more than two decades because he was considered a communist and a sympathiser of Cuba’s Fidel Castro, recently released documents show.

The documents posted on the FBI’s website show the US denied Fuentes an entry visa at least twice in the 1960s. In one of the memoranda Fuentes is described as “a leading Mexican communist writer” and a “well-known Mexican novelist with long history of subversive connections”.

Fuentes died in 2012 at age 83 after suffering an internal haemorrhage.

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