Perhaps one of the most noteworthy exports of Champaign-Urbana is Jacksonville Jaguars owner, Shad Khan. Flex-N-Gate founder, U of I graduate, immigrant and Muslim — the American Dream to most — Khan was featured in the New York Times regarding President Trump’s immigration ban.
Check out the full article, but here is an excerpt:
“The bedrock of this country are immigration and really a great separation between church and state,” Khan, 66, said here in Houston, the site of Sunday’s Super Bowl.
“Even for the country, it’s not good,” he added, explaining that he thought the order could deny entry to some of “the tens of thousands of people who can contribute to the making of America.”
The only immigrant and the only Muslim owner of an N.F.L. team, Khan came to the United States from Pakistan in 1967, earned a degree in engineering and went on to own Flex-N-Gate, a multibillion-dollar car parts business. He became a United States citizen decades ago.
Khan said it was “kind of a sobering time for somebody like me,” in part because he had expected President Trump to moderate his views on immigrants and Muslims once he was elected. But Khan said he was hopeful that the courts would provide a bulwark against the president’s actions against immigrants.
Top photo by Bill Wippert/Associated Press.
