Richard Gere ‘deeply ashamed’ of Republicans’ immigration rhetoric
Actor Richard Gere on Thursday said he is “deeply ashamed” of the rhetoric toward migrants coming from the Trump administration and Republican lawmakers.
Gere delivered a speech at the launch of a joint migration initiative by the Hertie School Centre for Fundamental Rights and The Gere Foundation in Berlin, Germany. He praised the long history of migration and what it has contributed to society, “and yet, somehow, in today’s debates, we often speak about migrants, about refugees, as if they were different from us.”
“I think the term I was actually given today –– apparently the U.S. government is calling aliens,” he said. “Aliens, that’s the latest. It had been vermin, now it’s aliens. I’m deeply ashamed of this, I want you to know. They belong to another category of human beings, as if their hopes and fears and aspirations were somehow less legitimate than our own.”
The “American Gigolo” actor reflected back on his own family history, saying that he had “four or five people on the Mayflower,” referring to the British ship carrying the Pilgrims who arrived in Massachusetts in the early 1600s.
“So, we all left and our parents left, our grandparents, to make a journey in search of safety, of opportunity, dignity, or simply to look for a better future,” he said. “Human history is in many ways the history of migration, of movement.”
Gere, who left the U.S. to live in Spain in 2024, then referred to President Trump in asking if it crossed anyone’s mind “that America could sink to this level.”
“Did you ever imagine that someone as crazy as this would become President of the United States and work to destroy it?” he asked.
The “Pretty Woman” actor has been an outspoken critic against the president for years. Earlier this week, he called Trump a “maniac” while speaking at the Oslo Freedom Forum in Norway. He referenced a recent trip he took to Dachau, one of the concentration camps used by the Nazis during the Holocaust, The Washington Times reported.
“We have to see the cues — this dictatorship of the monsters — how quickly it happens,” Gere said.
Gere also blasted Trump as a “bully” and a “thug” while giving an acceptance speech at the Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences of Spain’s Goya Awards in February 2025. He referred to the topic of authoritarianism and warned that it could happen anywhere.
“Authoritarianism takes us all over,” Gere said. “We have to be vigilant, we have to be alert, we have to be energetic. We have to be brave. We have to be courageous.”
