Nikki Minaj: ‘I was an illegal immigrant from Trinidad’

Nicki Minaj
Nicki Minaj

(Trinidad Express) As debate rages over the President Donald Trump administration’s zero-tolerance policy toward immigrants and their children coming to the U.S.-Mexico border, Trinidad –born rapper Nicki Minaj has spoken up on how she arrived in the US.

On her Instagram, Minaj, 35, posted: “I came to this country as an illegal immigrant @ 5 years old. I can’t imagine the horror of being in a strange place & 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 was born Onika anya Maraj in St James, Port of Spain and still has relatives in Trinidad whom she has visited.

She moved to Queens, New York in the 1980s.

On Wednesday, President Trump signed an executive order promising to “keep families together” in migrant detentions.

It reversed his own policy amid international fury over the separation of undocumented parents and children.

He said he had been swayed by images of children who have been taken from parents while they are jailed and prosecuted for illegal border-crossing.

But the order does not address families already separated by the policy.