Nicki Minaj shared an emotional message on her Instagram page recently speaking out about the migrant children being torn away from their parents at the U.S. and Mexico border, while sharing her own experience of coming to America as an immigrant.
The 41-year-old rapper (née Onika Tanya Maraj) who was born in Saint James, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago came to the U.S. as a 5-year-old child, and was raised in Queens, New York.
She opened up about her past alongside a 2015 photo of the cages at the processing detention centers run by the US Department of Homeland Security, where children have been held since being forcibly removed from their parents who were caught crossing into America under the Trump administration’s since-reversed “zero-tolerance” family separation policy.
“I came to this country as an illegal immigrant at 5 years old,” Minaj wrote on Instagram. “I can’t imagine the horror of being in a strange place and having my parents stripped away from me at the age of 5. This is so scary to me. Please stop this. Can you try to imagine the terror & panic these kids feel right now? Not knowing if their parents are dead or alive, if they’ll ever see them again… ”
Minaj isn’t the only celebrity who has been speaking out. Stars from Jada Pinkett Smith to Jim Carrey to Arnold Schwarzenegger have all slammed the Trump administration for his “cruel” immigration policy. Hip-hop stars like Nas, Fat Joe, and Cardi B have also vocalized their disgust.
As a result of the stars silent protests President Trump made a U-turn and signed an executive order reversing the separation policy.
“We are keeping families together,” Trump said in the Oval Office, where he was joined by Department of Homeland Security Secretary and other officials.
“This will solve that problem. At the same time, we are keeping a very powerful border and it continues to be a zero tolerance. We have zero tolerance for people who enter our country illegally,” he said.
A media outlet pointed out, in signing the order, Trump “officially reversed his debunked argument that he had no authority to stop separations of undocumented immigrant families at the border.”
